Colour Transparencies - & recycling them

[Petrushka]

I took some colour slides (some of them 50 years old) into our local Max Spielmann for transfer as prints. The idiots printed them in reverse image so had to do the whole lot again. However, the CD still has them in reverse image.

Is there any way I can correct them once imported to my laptop? Or do I have to go back to the shop?

[Gordon]

Depends what you mean by "reversed" - is it left/right or up/down geometric or colour space? If the CD you have contains the scanned images taken straight from the transparencies then any computer photo software like PhotoShop will "reverse" them for you on your own computer. You can even deal with a degree of exposure error. Even the embedded image rendering within Windows will show the images and you can "reverse" them on viewing, but I'm not sure that this method can deal with colour space errors.

As regards longevity of photographic originals, either slide positives or negatives, then similar remarks apply as in the case of the CD-R thread, the materials are subject to decay and storage - out of light and heat - is important. Get them transferred into electronic form, reprocessed as best you can to restore colour imbalances etc [eg Kodachrome had a green tint] and then burned to CD-R or on hard drive but beware of the CD-R issues too. Remember that early colour slides were very slow speed [ASA 50 or so and quite sensitive to exposure settings] but lowish in grain but will degrade slowly and become grainy with time. Colour negative film is more tolerant and usually faster [100 ASA and more] and retains its grain better but often the negatives have a strong tint corrected at printing.

I have large number of slides and negatives I have scanned myself taken of the wider family and children when small and also taken from parents and although I still have many of the original photographic negatives and slides I have them all in electronic form duly corrected and on CD-R and hard drive in tif format, not jpg.

EDIT: Beware also of colorimetry differences between photo paper and display devices like TVs and computer screens. The colour reproduction in each is peculiar to the medium and the colour gamut may not always be correctable - matching a computer screen to photo paper is fraught because the latter is dependent on the colour of ambient light. Broadcasters take a great deal of trouble over getting colours right even to requiring TV screens to conform to a standard - computer screens do not. So if you are a PhotoPhile [photographic equivalent of AudioPhile!] you'll have a frustrating time!! This is worsened if you print your own using inks that are not printer manufacturer recommended.

[Dave2002]

I took some colour slides (some of them 50 years old) into our local Max Spielmann for transfer as prints. The idiots printed them in reverse image so had to do the whole lot again. However, the CD still has them in reverse image.

Is there any way I can correct them once imported to my laptop? Or do I have to go back to the shop?

I guess you mean as negatives, rather than reverse. Reverse - i.e left <->right is easy to fix.

For negatives, there is some advice here - http://www.jeffreysward.com/editorials/colorneg.htm

and a video here -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2gLT0SWzpQ

You can find more by searching for "convert photo negative to positive photo shop"

The methods will probably work with most variants of Photo Shop - and hopefully would work with PS Elements, which is mostly considered to be the cheapest and worthwhile version. There are other photo editing tools, and there are likely to be ways of doing the same thing with those too.

[Petrushka]

What I mean is the pictures on the CD are in mirror image because the numpties in the shop scanned the slides from the wrong side. What I want to do is to put them back to as they should be once they are imported on to my laptop without the need for another trip to the shop. Is there a one click process that can do this?

[french frank]

GIMP is a free version of 'Photoshop'. It will flip horizontally and vertically. My avatar was 'turned' because I wanted the figure looking into the page.

But might be less trouble to go back to the shop ........

[Dave2002]

I just tried a few (3) on my Mac, and the computer work was almost immediate once set up.

1. Create a folder to put copies of the originals in. Don't work with the originals.
2. Select one, and open up in Preview.
3. From Preview, Open up all the files you want to swap over. Make sure the thumbnails show.
4. Select them all - the thumbails will be highlighted with a border.
5. in Tools select Flip Horizontal - which will invert all of the selected images.

At this point you might want to be careful about how you save the results, as if they are jpegs, they may be saved back in a lower quality. I suspect that if you can import them all as TIFF files (which may be huge ...) and save them back as TIFF files (still huge ....) you'll maintain quality.

Only you can be sure what level of quality you want to keep.

Do try to avoid over writing the originals at all costs.

There's probably something similar in the PC world, if that's what you're using. If you can do batch processing it will be quicker, though if anything goes wrong it will go wrong with the lot!

As ff says, might be less trouble to have another go at the shop. If you have a CD though, there's slightly less need to worry about overwriting the originals, as the data should stay on the CD - even if inverted.

If you want the images for presentation purposes, I think some presentation tools can invert a whole folder of images on the fly, so you might not have to hard code it by rewriting all the files.

[MrGongGong]

GIMP would be my choice also

(Not the suit )

[Frances_iom]

GIMP would be my choice also)

just to to your local Linux terminal and type "man convert " and see the power (why waste time flaffing around with a mouse etc
that will do all you want on one or a whole directory - see www.imagemagick.org/script/convert.php

however I would suggest you get them re-done as probably lost some definition by viewing wrong siide of the emulsion (esp for Kodachrome which has quite a thick layered emulsion butwas always my favourite (tho very slow ) for slides)

[Old Grumpy]

"Man convert" sounds like some mighty powerful software! You weren't Francis_iom in a previous incarnation were you, Frances?


OG

[Frances_iom]

only by a typo if you can find an example - sorry 'Man' is a rather useful command in Unix + Linux systems -

[umslopogaas]

Concerning durability of colour slides, I have some Kodachromes taken in 1974 at the Papua New Guinea Goroka Show. They have been stored in plastic file sheets, in ring books, in the dark in an unheated room: while I was working in PNG they were stored in an airconditioned office. A few are developing a slight bluish tinge, but most are just fine after forty years.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Concerning durability of colour slides, I have some Kodachromes taken in 1974 at the Papua New Guinea Goroka Show. They have been stored in plastic file sheets, in ring books, in the dark in an unheated room: while I was working in PNG they were stored in an airconditioned office. A few are developing a slight bluish tinge, but most are just fine after forty years.

The bluish tinge tinge can be rectified in a click with most photo software.

[umslopogaas]

Thanks EA, I didnt know that and will take note. But in truth, I very rarely look at them these days and they are actual slides, not scanned. I will scan them if anyone asks me to, but I cant think who might be interested in the Goroka Show of forty years ago, and if anyone is, the place was seething with professional photographers who must have taken much better photos than me.

Its rather a melancholy thought, I have files full of slides of many countries and that record means a lot to me, and would mean a bit to other people too, but who will want them? I have thought of offering them to the employer who sent me out to exotic places, but the thought of the work involved in providing modern versions is a bit forbidding. I could tell them to provide someone to do the scanning, but I know who would get the job of turning my slides into computer images, and she wouldnt thank me for it.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Thanks EA, I didnt know that and will take note. But in truth, I very rarely look at them these days and they are actual slides, not scanned. I will scan them if anyone asks me to, but I cant think who might be interested in the Goroka Show of forty years ago, and if anyone is, the place was seething with professional photographers who must have taken much better photos than me.

Its rather a melancholy thought, I have files full of slides of many countries and that record means a lot to me, and would mean a bit to other people too, but who will want them? I have thought of offering them to the employer who sent me out to exotic places, but the thought of the work involved in providing modern versions is a bit forbidding. I could tell them to provide someone to do the scanning, but I know who would get the job of turning my slides into computer images, and she wouldnt thank me for it.

My mother used to tell my father (a professional photographer) not to keep "old photos". His reply was that old photos are often much more important than new ones.

I remember taking a photograph of Holbeck Hall Hotel, Scarborough on my newly acquired panoramic camera. Once developed, I though the picture rather boring and threw it away. Then the hotel famously slid in to the sea. I realised my terrible error. I had thrown away what was probably the last photo of the hotel before its demise.

Fortunately, I discovered I'd neglected to transfer the contents of the waste paper basket to the dustbin, and was able to retrieve the slide.

Now I keep all SD cards, just in case.

[umslopogaas]

EA, your father was right, but he should also have said, "make sure they are labelled". I have several suitcases of old family photos and 'i have no idea who any of the people in them are and the only person in my living memory who might have known was my mum, and she's long departed. I keep them anyway, we are not a close family and I think there might be a relation out there who would be glad of the history, one day.