Digitizing old 35MM slides

[RobertN]

I have two slide projectors /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

Oh, and a screen /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

Until I get a digital SLR, my trusty Nikon F100 continues to get a workout /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[RobertN]

Interesting...

When I opened this thread to read the latest posts this evening, the little adds that come up just above the posts were for scanning slides and pictures!

I went to one link:
scanning add seen on TBN

 

[_RaT_]

I found that once I went digital, I have begun experimenting much more then I would ever thought of before. Using flash is a so much better since you can take corrective measures immediately. I never used flash much before but with digital it opens up a whole new meaning. The interesting thing too is I'm getting better 8X10's done on my Epson R800 then I did at semi custom labs doing my slides and the benefit of photo cropping. I am anxious to get some of my better transparencies digitized so I can do the same. My various 35mm cameras get used a tiny bit, I sold my better one with a super lens but digital also has the stinkin crop factor on the prosumer SLR's so I needed more wide angle then a 135mm portrait lens offered. I have not given up on film completely but it would not be hard. I love the versatility of digital and "cheap" picture it affords, I much prefer the 1:1 ratio of the 35mm film and lens as well as the much narrower depth of field it offers. .

 

[Henry]

I just finished a project restoring about 900 slides taken between 1946 and 1971. Due to their age, many of the original 35mm slides were badly faded and scratched. The following hardware & software was used in the restoration process:
<ul type="square">
[*]A Slide Scanner. It’s a special hardware device that is especially made for digitally scanning the slides into the computer. I purchased a PrimeFilm 1800u slide scanner (digitizes the original slides at 1800 dpi).

[*]Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 using these filters:
- Kodak Digital ROC version 1.1.3 (acquired separately as a plug-in) – This is the real magic necessary to restore faded slides !!!!
- Dust & Scratch (built-in filter)
- Quick-fix filters (built-in filter)

[*]Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0
[/list]

The following steps were used to scan and restore the slides:
<ul type="square">
[*]Each slide was individually scanned, which created the original “jpeg” image. The jpeg images were stored in directories that loosely describe when or where the slides were photographed. The files names also indicate the order in which with slides were scanned. It takes about 1 minute to scan each slide to produce apprx. a 5 meg jpeg (big).

[*]Using Photoshop Elements, a combination of filters was used to restore the jpeg images. In the majority of cases, Digital ROC provided the real magic by eliminating the red fading on most of the slides, followed by the quick-fix filters for brightness adjustment. The dust and scratch filter was used sparingly to cleanup really dirty or scratched slides.

[*]Using Photoshop Album, each slide was dated and any hand-writing on the slides was transcribed into the title field for each slide. In addition the slides were organized into meaningful categories. As information, Photoshop Album’s title and date information gets embedded inside the jpeg image as meta-data. Only jpeg specific programs know how to access this information.

[*]For presentation purposes, some of the better slides were titled by embedding a large-font title directly into the jpeg file (as a single layer). The titled jpegs were saved separately with an “_edited” suffix. The original (restored) jpeg files were also preserved as the embedded titles cannot be removed.

[*]Multi-page PDF’s were created to support easy presentation and viewing.
[/list]

I'm very very happy with the results. It was a fairly significant effort, but well worth it to preserve family history. The total investment in hardware & software was approx. $400. Given the poor condition of my slides, I'm not convinced that a slide restoration service could have done a very good job.

See the attached slide as an example. It's a bit grainy because I had to scale back the original 5 meg jpeg back to a 100k version to post on TBN. Not bad for a 50 year old slide!

 

[mikim]

good grief! how many hours??? that must've taken forever to do all that .... great results though. -- kudos

 

[_RaT_]

Thanks Henry, very helpful post. Did you know Photoshop Elements 3 now has Album built in?

 

[RobertN]

Curiously, how were the slides stored and archived?

It was my understanding that Kodachrome and Ektachrome slides held up very well, unless exposed to dust, sun, ect.

We have a friend that teaches photography(I took outdoor photo), leads tours(wife and I did her Alaska tour), as well as being a pro photographer. She has slides going back to the 60's in her archives of commercially available photostock. they are stored in a cool dry place, in archival quality sleeves and or boxes.

 

[Henry]

The slides were stored for years in a relatively air-tight metal box. It never made any sense to me which types of slides (Kodachrome, etc.) held up better than others. There were some slides that were completely black or so red-tinted that I could not bring them back. I think I was lucky with the dust & scratches due to the way they were stored. However, it's pretty amazing what you can do to remove dust and scratches from the slides!

The total project took me about 4 months of nights and weekends..... it was a bit mind-numbing due the repetitive process, but the results were fabulous!