35 m Kodachrom slide to photograph

[disneymarie]

Is it possible to use families old slides to print photographs? How much and quality reasonable.

 

[seashoreCM]

A scanner with slide/negative capability will give excellent copies although you need to blow/brush off dust first. If a laboratory of 20 years ago could get an 8x10 inch print of good quality (the slide itself was good enough), so can you.

You can get Internet/eBay quality pictures (quality equal to a picture with less than 1000 pixels on a side aka less than one megapixel) by projecting the slide on a screen and taking a picture of it.

There are still a few places that will print slides for you.

In my opinion, for content preservation (archival) purposes you should scan run of the mill slides using at least 2400 dpi and scan good sharp slides using at least 3600 dpi.

For 4x6 prints, 1200 dpi will probably be sufficient. For internet (Facebook, etc.) pictures you may be able to go as low as 600 dpi provided you don't need to scale it upwards using your computer prior to posting on the internet. The larger the dpi, the longer it takes to scan and also adjust/tweak each picture file and also the more storage space the picture file occupies. If the same scan will be used for multiple purposes, then scan it once at the highest resolution needed and make scaled down copies using your computer for the less critical needs.

 

[disneymarie]

I was hoping to make family prints from them of about 11 X 14.
What kind of scanner, just the one on my printer? I do not have a projector.

 

[photo_chick]

I scan a lot of negative and slides (probably 10,000 sides and who knows how many negative frames), and I make inkjet prints from some of them. Your scanner must have a transparency unit. I use an older scanner, an Epson 4870. The V500 and V700 are both comparable and will more than do this kind of job. I use an Epson R2880 to print, but you could just as easily use a lab.

The most important things when scanning slides and negatives is for everything to be as clean as possible, and to scan at a high enough resolution for what you want to do. Just do the math. If everything is clean and scanned at high enough resolution you can make some very nice prints.

Inches x DPI = pixels

You want an image that's 11x14. To print it you need 300 DPI so you multiply. That tells you that you need an image that's 3300 x 4200 pixels. Now measure your slide (35mm is 24mm x 36mm or .944 x 1.417 inches) You have the pixels you need from the first calculation, and the inches form the size of the object you're scanning. Plug those into the formula (you only need to do the long side really)to get a DPI of 2964, go ahead and round it up to 3000. That's what you need to scan at.

Now Epson scanners (as well as some other brands) will do all of that math for you. Just tell it your output size and the DPI for that output size and it does the rest.

 

[klmall]

I have scanned many slides myself but lately I have been using coupons from GROUPON for ScanDigital services. By signing up to receive emails from GROUPON I bought $100 worth of scanning services for $40 each and just recently mailed over 700 slides in to be scanned using digital ICE, cleaned up etc. and uploaded to an online site for access and safekeeping.

If you don't want to spend the time and effort I had been by scanning each slide and then using software to improve the quality of each slide then this may be the way to go. Once all these slides are ready in September I'll be posting a review on this board with examples.

 

[boBQuincy]

Looking on the web under "prints from slides" shows there are still a number of labs that offer this service. The downside is this means you may have to send the slides away.

Another possibility is Ritz Camera, many locations can scan your slides at the store. Since you live in N.E. PA it is likely there is a store not too far away.

The ultimate print from a slide is Ilfochrome and it appears there may still be a few labs that work with this process but expect high prices.

 

[disneymarie]

Thanks for the info about Ritz camera, the closest since the Stroud Mall closed is Fort Washington area. But, I bought my new Sony there and would like to change out the 55-200 lens for a broader range one (18-100+), so a trip is in the picture. I can have my camera lens cleaned too. That mall is amazing any way.