How to Preserve Your Old 35 mm Slides

Like many people who have only discovered digital photography in the last few years, I have a ton of 35mm slides sitting in my closet. Viewing these slides are totally dependent upon having access to a working slide projector. Unfortunately, these projectors are fast becoming dinosaurs in the world of photography. Projector bulbs burn out and are impossible to find, projector mechanisms chew up the slides and with them the precious memories they contain. So what does an old photo hound who has been spoiled by the ease and clarity of the new digital photos and digital projection do to preserve and view these little treasures?

My recent research turns up three possible methods. The first is the easiest. Pay someone else an enormous amount of money to do it for you. The second involves setting up an old projection screen. The type used to watch all of those old 8 mm movies will work perfectly. Set up your digital camera on a tripod, turn off the flash and room lights, then shoot a digital photo of the the images you project onto the screen. Of course this requires a working slide projector, and screen and offers no opportunity to make any corrections to the exposure of the slides.

The third requires using a slide scanner. Since I had the wonderful fortune to have a cousin who already owned one of these little beauties and was generous enough to loan it to me, the decision was easily made. The scanner was a Minolta Dimage Scan Dual II model AF-2820U. It is extremely easy to use and comes with everything you need to digitally preserve your precious slides and memories to your computer.

A common problem with slide photography is that the film was either over exposed or under exposed. This scanner can automatically correct for both of these situations. Also, the quality of a slide image might not be it's best because of back lighting which essentially silhouettes the people in the shot. This too can be corrected with a click of the mouse. Another click corrects color balances and contrast. A life saving feature of this method is that even if the slide has a bent cardboard holder it can be successfully scanned without risking a jam of the slide in a mechanism and further destruction of the slide.

The process is simple. Load the first four slides into a specially sized holder that comes with the scanner. (The scanner also comes with additional holders for 35 mm film strips and also APS cartridges.) A quick blast of air from a can of moisture free air will blow away any loose dust particles. Insert the holder into the scanner, click the scan button and the scanner does the rest. If you have another program such as photo shop you can do more detailed corrections and cropping of the photos.

The digital scan of the slide can now be sorted and filed onto your computer hard drive or portable storage device. I chose a 50 giga byte portable storage device to save the precious storage capacity of my hard drive. The most difficult part of the whole process was controlling my impulses to perfectly correct each photo before storing it. This significantly increases the time necessary to complete the original task which was to scan the slide collection. I had to remind myself that further corrections were better left until after I had finished screening the mountain of slides on my desk. This definitely is a time consuming project and to preserve sanity, I suggest breaking it into increments of about an hour at a time if possible.

After this process is complete, I will download the finished images onto DVDs. for further ease in viewing and storage safety. I also plan to make extra copies to give as gifts to those people on my "difficult to buy for" list. Who doesn't like to see photos of their own family? I will recoup some of my time spent scanning by not having to go to store searching for that elusive gift. Priceless!