Care and ideal perseveration methods for your slides and digital image collection

Scan it and store it… if at all possible avoid handling, printing, or viewing your master film images.

Film is delicate. Even under ideal conditions, color slide film degrades over time, while much can be done to restore faded or shifted colors digitally, there is always a level permanent and irreversible damage associated with aging color film.

Scanning can restore faded slides to close to their original appearance to an extent but there is less that we can do for misused or abused film. To properly take care of your slides you should :

• Avoid having anything touch the image part of the film.
• Do not attempt to clean your film expect with a handheld “photo blower”.
• Keep your images in a dark place,
• Avoid moisture and high humidity levels as water can soften the emulsion of the film and also is likely to lead to permanent mold damage… Flooding basements are a common threat to film across the globe.
• Avoid heat and light (especially sunlight) as theses will lead to rapid deterioration of film
• Do not project your maters slides, Kodachrome’s can fade after a day in the projector! Instead have us scan your images and get digital produced duplicates made for your future viewing needs.
• Printing from your negatives is likely to cause a cumulative and irreversible physical damage to the film master and physically retouch a historical negative would be a Sin. Instead have us digitize the image, retouch on the computer and then digitally output a new negative for your printing needs. We can make larger negatives for platinum printing and traditional darkroom processes. Please contact us with any need that you might have.
• Make copies of your digital files at multiple locations or look for an online digital image archiving service.

A digital image can be preserved indefinitely; it will not mold, fade, or change color over time. A digital image can be copied and shared with 100% integrity. Images can be stored at multiple locations providing a secure back up of your precious images. Everyone should have their images scanned to prevent important memories or events from fading away.