U radu se razmatraju mogućnosti digitalizacije fotografskih negativa na različitim podlogama uz poseban naglasak na sveprisutne zablude i pogreške koje taj oblik reformatiranja prate od najranijih trenutaka do danas. U prvom su dijelu pregledno izložene osobitosti samih negativa kao objekata materijalne kulture, o kojima prije početka digitalizacije osobito valja voditi računa, a drugi dio sadržava kritički osvrt na prevođenje fotografske slike obrnutih tonskih vrijednosti u digitalni oblik s ciljem poticanja na razmišljanje o materijalnosti, kontekstu nastanka i podrijetlu značenja fotografija, koji se nepažnjom ili nerazumijevanjem prirode tih objekata vrlo lako mogu nepovratno izgubiti.; The article considers digitization possibilities of photographic negatives on various supports with the special emphasis on the ubiquitous errors and mistakes that accompany that kind of reformatting from the earliest moments until today. The first part clearly explains the particularities of negatives as objects of material culture that have to especially be taken into account before digitization begins. By using polarity as a property of the photographic image, various types of negatives were elaborated, according to their supports photographic processes and function. Hence, for the first time, together with the often mentioned negatives on paper, glass and plastic, which usually have »original« as their added adjective, other photographic forms with an image in negative are also included, such as photograms, negative-prints, negative-copies, internegatives or separation negatives that can also be objects of digitization. The second part of the text contains a critical review of transferring a photographic image of the reversed tonal value in the digitized form with the aim of encouraging the thinking about materiality, context of inception and the origin of photographic meaning which can become irreversibly lost due to carelessness or non-comprehension of the nature of these objects. By reviewing various digitization guidelines, the need is emphasized for a clearly defined point and aims of reformatting negatives into a digitized form according to the expected usage of digitized files i.e. depending if digitized images will be used as visual references in a database, for reproducing or as a »replacement« for an original in the sense of spatial and tonal informational content.