Making prints from old slides.

[3catwoman3]

Very old slides - 40 years old.

I recently unearthed a large 3 ring notebook full of negatives and slides belonging to my brother, who died 40 years ago, at age 23, while studying photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology. I knew that I had these materials, but hadn't looked thru them in a very long time. Probably at least 20 years. I may never have looked at all of them.

There are a few slides of pictures of him, rather than by him, probably taken by his then-girlfriend. I do not remember ever seeing these pictures of him, and I would like to get prints made of them. I suspect my 96 yr old mom would like to see these photos, but the slides would be much too small for her 96 yr old eyes to make out much.

The slides are on color Kodak film, and are in perfect condition.

I would appreciate any expert recommendations on a safe way to accomplish this.

[Sherman A1]

1. I would check with your local camera store

If you have none contact AdoramaPix. They can be found online.

[amerikat]

2. I believe Kinkos

can do that.

[csziggy]

6. Kinbkos is gone, replaced by FedEx Office

And they no longer do that kind of thing in house. They send it out, maybe to India. I would not trust them to do it.

My husband worked for Kinkos when they were acquired by FedEx. For years they were labeled FedEx Kinkos then rebranded FedEx Office. For years before he retired they cut back on the in house services so they are all nearly gone.

[Major Nikon]

3. There's basically two different options

One is to scan the slides and produce a digital copy from which you can make as many prints as you want. The other is to use a lab that will render a print from a slide.

For the first option you can buy your own scanner and do it yourself, although if you don't have that many it may not be worth the expense and learning curve to do so. Chances are you have a local camera store or professional film lab that can do this for you and there's a few labs online that will do it. There's a big variance on scanning equipment used and the skill level of the person doing it, so quality will vary.

The second option has the potential to produce the most high quality prints, provided the slides are Kodachrome which archives much better. If not you're better off scanning them as color correction will almost certainly be needed on faded slides.

[3catwoman3]

4. Zero skills in this area myself, and, as I like to say, I have...

Last edited Mon Aug 6, 2018, 07:47 PM - Edit history (1)

...made it out of the Stone Age when it comes to technology, but haven't yet made it to the Renaissance.

My younger son is seriously into drone photography, makes very good videos and prints, and is quite tech savvy. I'll check with him.

There are about 900 negatives in this binder, a few of which I might like to get developed. Is that a lost art?

[Major Nikon]

5. It's definitely not a lost art

There's still people using slide film and there's still labs out there who work with it.

[csziggy]

7. I would find a service to scan them to digital

Then you can have prints made from those files at any point, plus share copies of the digital images.

Check with local photo shops to see if they can do this locally or recommend someone. For some very old (pre WWII) film I used Film Rescue International who I can recommend, though they are not cheap. They offer up to archival quality scans for film and negatives. http://www.filmrescue.com/

I used Film Rescue since some of the film I had was never developed. We ddin't get much out of those, but we were really hopeful.

One thing to watch for - some of the old Kodak and other brands of film and slides will have badly shifted color and will need correcting. Software such as Photoshop these days can easily do most of the correction so if you get the images scanned make sure correction is included. Otherwise you may end up with very magenta tinged pictures that are nearly unusable.

I do my own scanning but I have a big investment in software and hardware to do so ply nearly twenty years experience in it.

[3catwoman3]

8. The colors on the slides are strikingly vivid.

If I didnt know better, I would think they had been made very recently.

Most of the negatives are in black and white.

[csziggy]

9. Good! Then that is not a big worry

You probably do not need a specialized service like Film Rescue International.

See if you can find a local service that can digitize.Then getting prints would be easier and cheaper than old fashioned developing, especially for the slides.

[ManiacJoe]

10. A couple other services that I have not yet used:

http://www.digmypics.com
http://www.scancafe.com