Digitizing the Civil War Negatives

During 2002-2003, JJT, Inc., of Austin, Texas, scanned the Civil War negatives. They used an overhead MARC II digital camera to scan the 7,592 glass negatives (measuring in sizes ranging between 2-1/4 x 3-1/2" and 8 x 10 inches). The images were captured in grayscale at a spatial resolution of approximately 10,000 pixels on the long side and a tonal resolution of 16 bits per pixel. The negatives were scanned with the emulsion side up to protect the fragile surface. The negatives display online as they would have been printed. Words sometimes appear in mirror image because they were notes written on the emulsion side for identification purposes, not necessarily to be printed with the image--the words were often cropped out.

With today's resources, these very high-resolution images require significantly increased costs, particularly in time spent capturing, inspecting, and loading the files. For most collections in the Prints and Photographs Division, online digital images, even at lower resolutions, play an important preservation role as surrogates that reduce handling of the original pictures. The high-quality derivative files are available online, but the master files have been archived. Digital images of each negative display in each bibliographic record. Two (or more) digital images display separated or variant views of items in stereograph records to facilitate re-creation of original stereoscopic views.

Specifications for the Negatives

Uncompressed Archival Images

Compressed Service Images

Thumbnail Images

Master Archived Images