In the pre-digital era, photo slides were a common way to preserve
memories. But now the technology of slides is outdated, most people no longer
have access to a slide projector to view them, so the films are forgotten in
boxes on the far shelves.
One client of a photo studio told how she undertook to
digitize a box with old slides and stumbled upon several photos of her father,
who passed away when she was only four years old. Until that moment, she had
never seen these photos, and her relatives forgot about them for many years.
After the slides were scanned, the whole family happily looked at the faded,
but such native images. Such stories remind us that we must digitize the old
slides now, without delay, until time has absorbed them completely and
irrevocably.
Digitizing slides yourself
You can do slide scanning yourself using a specialized film
or flatbed scanner equipped with a module for processing slides. Before you
start scanning, pay attention to important points.
Resolution Selection
Before scan
Image resolution is measured in DPI (dot per inch) - the
number of dots per inch of surface. Resolution allows you to appreciate two
important things about the image.
·
Sharpness, or how sharp the
image will look.
·
The ability to print such a
digital image.
Higher resolution will produce larger prints. For example, a
35 mm slide scanned into a file with a resolution of 10 megapixels will allow
prints up to 13x9 inches in size. However, a large resolution is not always
beneficial. High-resolution scanning can capture unwanted grains from
photographic material. In such cases, digitizing with a lower DPI may give
better results.
Dust and scratch removal
On slides that have been lying in the box for a long time,
scratches, mold, or other defects associated with time or careless handling
often appear. A combination of antistatic film cleaner and lint-free cloth can
be used to clean mold slides before scanning . Here you should be careful and
gently wipe the film along the length, and not in a circular motion, to avoid
the formation of new scratches.
One of the automated solutions to the problem of dust and
scratches is a hardware-software retoucher called Digital ICE (Image Correction
& Enhancement). This is a technology for minimizing defects, which is
integrated into good modern scanners. The essence of this technology is to use
infrared light to detect and subtract the positions of dust and scratches from the
final image. The modern implementation of Digital ICE includes, in addition to
the Digital ICE module itself, dust and scratch removal, recovery and color
correction modules, reducing grain visibility, optimizing contrast and exposure
.
However, this technology has some limitations. For example,
Digital ICE does not work well with black and white films containing silver
halide. Silver halide grains in this type of film can create artifacts that
Digital ICE cannot efficiently process. In this case, manual editing is
necessary to obtain a clear image without scratches.
Color correction and restoration
When working with old slides, color correction and
restoration is important. Firstly, as mentioned above, scanners have built-in
functionality that can help correct color shifts and fading.
Secondly, you can use graphic editors such as Photoshop in
cases where a scanned image from a slide requires more complex recovery. This
happens, for example, when mold on a slide obscures part of the image. You can
restore such a slide, but you will need knowledge and experience using the
software.
After scanning
Custom slides
The format of 35 mm slides is the norm, but there are other
less common formats. The size of the actual image in the cardboard slide mount
will tell you which format you are dealing with. In addition to 35 mm, there
are also types of films 110, 126, 127, 120, films of medium and large format.
Not all scanning equipment is equipped with suitable modules
to capture the entire image area for such formats. This may result in cropping
and incomplete scanning. So a universal and high-quality scanner that can
handle all of these formats is a key requirement when scanning non-standard
slides.
Give it a try! Slides are worth keeping a memory of them.
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