How do I change film from negative to positive?

I'm going to buy a camera (Lomography Spinner 360) and I'm wondering how I can develop and scan my own film. After I develop the film, it becomes the 'negatives', right? So when will these photos become positive? Do I need an enlarger to flip the colors or can I easily do this with chemicals? I was planning on using a scanner instead of an enlarger but I'm unsure of whether I will have to digitally alter each photo to change it from 'negative' to 'positive'.|||People seem to be missing a very important part of your question... the "lomo" camera. You cannot use slide film, (which is most certainly still available), with a lomo camera. Well... you *can* physically use it, but you would be lucky to have 2 usable shots from a roll. Slide (positive) film has much less exposure latitude than negative film. A lomo camera is severely crippled when it comes to getting a proper exposure even with negative film. It is almost impossible to get consistent good exposure with slide film. You will need a "real" camera to use true positive film.





Now, you can process true black and white film (NOT C41 black and white film) yourself. You do not even need a darkroom. Just a changing bag and the necessary chemicals and canisters. This is relatively cheap and easy. If you are planning to make optical prints, that is when you will need the enlarger, darkroom, more chemicals, trays, photographic paper. It gets MUCH more expensive and difficult making optical prints. With a film scanner, you simply scan the negatives into a digital format for printing / computer use. That is actually how the great majority of film prints are made today anyway. There are very, very few labs that still make optical prints with an enlarger in a dark room. The film is simply scanned and prints made from the now digital files. The scanner, by the way, uses it's built in software to reveal the negative as a positive.





The problem then becomes the quality of the scanner. You can get cheap ones that give pretty poor results, or you can get a drum scanner that costs over $20,000. Probably the best compromise home scanner on the market now is the Epson Perfection V600. The Plustek Opticfilm is also a very good unit, but it only scans 35mm. If you use 120 medium format film, you will need the Epson. Also, the Canon Canoscan 9000 has been given good reviews, (at least for a flatbed scanner).





steve|||Developing Black %26amp; White film is pretty easy to do. Developing color is beyond the capability of many amateurs as some expensive equipment is required.



A negative will become a positive when you enlarge it with photo paper. But some photo processing apps will also do this, so you could scan the negative in and have the computer change it.



If you want positive film, you need to buy slide film. I have no idea if it is even available anymore. Kodak for sure discontinued Kodachrome awhile ago. When I did color in the darkroom, I had the slides developed professionally and used a process called Cibachrome to make prints. I think it's called Ilfochrome now days.



http://www.althephoto.com|||The scanner will have the option of scanning a negative. The app - Photoshop, gimp, etc. will convert it to a positive image then. Or you can buy transparency film and get a positive to begin with (probably the better choice.) Transparencies scan better in my experience.|||Your negatives will never be positives. But you can make copies from them through scanning and turn them into digital files or by making chemical copies with an enlarger.