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When you do a lot of film photography, both in black and white and in color, the end result is a pile of prints to file in photo safe albums or scrapbooks and a pile of negatives that have no use unless you want to make another print someday in the future.

Negatives can be frustrating, because they take a lot of time to organize, and many times you will never need them again. However, it is inevitable that as soon as you throw your negative away, the original print will get damaged or misplaced. To take the stress out of filing your negatives, have a positive attitude and follow these few simple steps.

First, don’t let your negatives pile up in a box, even if it is archival quality. When negatives touch and rub against one another, they cause scratches, and new prints from these negatives won’t be as good as the first prints you made. Instead, buy negative sleeves for storage.

Negative sleeves are available in paper or plastic, and both have their own advantages and disadvantages. Plastic sleeves are generally 100% photo safe if they are listed as such, and sometimes the company that develops your pictures gives you free plastic negative sleeves.

Their downfall is that they create static when rubbed against negatives, which attracts dust. Dust will scratch and damage your negatives. Paper sleeves are sometimes not photo safe, and even if they are, acid can migrate through the paper if they are touching non-safe items. The paper options available do not attract the dust plastic sleeves do, so they will not scratch your negatives as easily.

In any case, negative sleeves are usually best stored in binders, and should be placed in a controlled environment, where the temperature does not get too hot or cold and there is not a lot of humidity.

Some people like to keep the negatives stored out of their home, so that if fire or water damages the prints, the negatives are safe in another location. You can rent a safety deposit box for this, but a more practical option is to trade negatives with a friend so that you each can keep your photographs safe.

Once you decide how you want to keep you negatives safe, the last step of the process is to organize them. This is not as difficult as it sounds, and after you get all the initial work done from previous piles of negatives, it is easy to stay on top of the task every time you develop a roll of film.

The key is to come up with a system that works for you. One way is to keep your negatives in chronological order. If you scrapbook, another negative organization method is to keep them in order according to their order in you scrapbook.

Yet another way to organize is by subject matter. However you do it, you probably want to get rid of any negative for pictures that flopped-ones that were to dark for example-to keep your negative album as small as possible. Mark your negatives clearly and store them safely, and you will no longer have to worry about digging though multiple strips to find the one you need.