The Quality of Colour Slides : "The Anonymous Project"

[Lat-Literal]

The Anonymous Project’s goals are to collect, scan, and catalogue colour photographic negatives and slides from the last 50 years.

The emphasis in the media coverage has been on the latter which have been said to need rescuing in this way before deterioration.

http://www.anonymous-project.com/the-project/

I am very keen on the slides we have, especially those from the 1950s and 1960s, which I like to look at through a viewfinder. They not only convey an atmosphere of those times via the buildings, vehicles and fashions but also in the distinctive colour of slide photography which, with hindsight, is as much about style as realistic imaging. Would any technical aspects be able to advise me how long they are likely to last as I would like to know if quality deterioration is a matter of real urgency : 10, 20, 50, 100 years before they would be unusable?

Also, I am not entirely convinced that the transferring of such photography in the ways undertaken by "The Anonymous Project" is completely successful in terms of maintaining the original colour. It would be helpful to have additional thoughts on how that colour could be an absolute replica in any copying of slide photos onto modern and/or into technology.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The Anonymous Project’s goals are to collect, scan, and catalogue colour photographic negatives and slides from the last 50 years.

The emphasis in the media coverage has been on the latter which have been said to need rescuing in this way before deterioration.

http://www.anonymous-project.com/the-project/

I am very keen on the slides we have, especially those from the 1950s and 1960s, which I like to look at through a viewfinder. They not only convey an atmosphere of those times via the buildings, vehicles and fashions but also in the distinctive colour of slide photography which, with hindsight, is as much about style as realistic imaging. Would any technical aspects be able to advise me how long they are likely to last as I would like to know if quality deterioration is a matter of real urgency : 10, 20, 50, 100 years before they would be unusable?

Also, I am not entirely convinced that the transferring of such photography in the ways undertaken by "The Anonymous Project" is completely successful in terms of maintaining the original colour. It would be helpful to have additional thoughts on how that colour could be an absolute replica in any copying of slide photos onto modern and/or into technology.

After retiring from teaching, I missed working, so I unretired and now have my own photo restoration business, rescuing old prints, negatives, transparencies, glass plates and lantern slides.

With transparencies it depends very much on the kind of film being used. Kodachrome slides are more stable than most others, just as Technicolor films have held their colours better than other film processes. But poor storage can be a photographic graveyard.

[Dave2002]

I've not tried digitising colour slides or colour negatives, but it is something I'm interested in. I have scanned in printed colour photos and it is definitely possible to improve them - as they probably have blemishes due to dirt and other problems. Colour matching can be very hard to get "absolutely" right. An example might be a wedding photo - where the most obvious approach is to treat a wedding dress as white - but unfortunately it may be known that a particular dress was not actually white, so using that to get a near optimal white balance and to correct the colours in the image won't work. Sometimes flesh tones can be used to adjust the colour, and this is a technique used in some video editing packages - a good one being DaVinci Resolve. This method is perhaps less well known by still photographers, but many film makers are aware of that as part of a colour grading process. Larry Jordan shows some of the methods using another editing tool Final Cut Pro X - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX45Yi1spY4

What I'd particularly like to know is what is a reasonable amount to spend on a slide or transparency digitiser. Although there are some very cheap ones, I believe they are rather poor - so does one have to pitch at £100, or £500 or £1k to get accceptable results?

[Stunsworth]

As mentioned by EA above Kodachrome has the best archival properties. According to the Wikipedia Kodachrome page the least stable colour - yellow - will take 185 years to lose 20% of its saturation.

The best east results will come from a dedicated film scanner, but good ones are no longer as common as they once were. A flat bed scanner with a negative/slide attachment is an alternative, but in my case my Nikon film scanner walks all over my Epson flat bed wrt quality.

For scanning i use the Vuescan software. I bought it almost 20 years ago and have been receiving free updates ever since. Something of a bargain.

After saying all all that I don’t do much scanning these days, digital is far less time consuming.

[Dave2002]

It looks as though a new Nikon scanner may be emerging soon - hopefully it'll be good enough for my purposes - https://www.cliftoncameras.co.uk/Nik...SABEgJnf_D_BwE

Lidl do one from time to time, which is cheap as chips, but apparently nothing like as tasty.

[johnb]

It looks as though a new Nikon scanner may be emerging soon - hopefully it'll be good enough for my purposes - https://www.cliftoncameras.co.uk/Nik...SABEgJnf_D_BwE

Lidl do one from time to time, which is cheap as chips, but apparently nothing like as tasty.

Stunsworth might have been referring to the long discontinued Nikon Coolscan - which is a totally different kettle of fish.

In the past I have experimented with a decent flatbed scanner (Canon 9000f) but IMO such scanners don't really have the optical resolution to do justice to the slides/negatives. The results can be acceptable - depending on your requirements - but I found the post scan cleaning up process very, very time consuming.

Like Stunsworth, I have been using VueScan for some years (together with Photoshop Elements).

[Stunsworth]

It’s an attachment for a digital camera rather than a scanner. It also sounds as if you’ll need a macro lens to be able to focus on the film. Not sure why it mentions a specific body though, I’d expect any Nikon SLR with a full frame sensor would be ok.

[Dave2002]

It seems that decent scanners for film are currently hard to come by. I have a friend who has a very good one - but that was bought years ago. Perhaps the consumer market for these has now collapsed - unfortunately.

Seems there are a number of stand alone gadgets which put the digitised files onto memory cards, so compatible with different computers. Still don't know if any are actually any good - nor whether the current prices (around £70) are typical - due to Black Friday issues - will these prices go up in a few days time?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/7dayshop-Portable-Resolution-Scanner-Colour/dp/B009WQXNHA/ref=sr_1_5?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1511621398&sr=1-5&keywords=film+scanner+high+resolution#Ask

[Lat-Literal]

Thank you for the posts to date, all of which have been informative and interesting. The word "sides" in the title should, of course, have read "slides" - I am not the full ticket at the moment! There is also a sense of deja vu in that I might have asked similar questions before. The thread was prompted by media coverage of "The Anonymous Project" but I seem to recall having mentioned the old adage "Kodak leans to red, Agfa leans to blue" or something along those lines. That may or may not have a bearing on yellow being the wobbliest colour.

I've also got a feeling that the distinction there emanates from the 1970s. It applied to photos I took when the ones of greater interest to me and more numerous are those from the 1950s and early 1960s, many of which were taken before I was born. I doubt that Agfa is relevant to those times, ie I'd guess it came later? So, yes, it would be Kodak but were their other suppliers too in, say, the 1950s, budget priced? Also, when were plastic frames first introduced as an alternative to cardboard? Could those be accommodated by scanners?

Also, to my eyes - this is counter-intuitive following on from the comment about Kodak and the likelihood that most of the slides are Kodak - the 1950s and early 1960s slides while producing a vivid red for the reds is most notable for its pinks and especially the blues which have a strikingly green aura or tinge to them. The latter don't look wishy-washy or wrong and are as striking as the other colours. Much of this could be about the favoured colours of the era - vehicles, jumpers wtc. But, I do feel that it is also about the photos per se and/or possibly the way that light is used to view them. In contrast, the colour in modern digital photography while equally bold loses something of an atmosphere in its balance of all colours.

Additionally, while I think the "Anonymous Project" is a good one, some of the atmosphere in many of the photos that have been reproduced is lost in a different way. That is, in what seems to be less striking colour. I'm assuming those are the ones which have not been transferred from slides. Perhaps the key point is Stunsworth's figure of 185 years to lose 20% of saturation. That implies to me that family slides - even where they are appreciated as social documents as much as anything else - may be best remaining as slides in any coming years.

[Dave2002]

Perhaps the key point is Stunsworth's figure of 185 years to lose 20% of saturation. That implies to me that family slides - even where they are appreciated as social documents as much as anything else - may be best remaining as slides in any coming years.

However it could still be worth digitising some. You could then send electronic copies to others if you wished, or build up a digital album. Also, good digital copies might help to protect against future accidents - or other problems which you may not anticipate. Note the comments about how many it might be possible to do each hour, but even so, if you only have around 300 slides, then it should be possible to digitise and fix them all in less than a day's work (total - say 10-24 hours spread over several days). There would be the cost of the equipment, though an alternative might be to have them scanned by a professional. Note though that some professionals have been known to lose originals or damage them - so you might prefer to try yourself first.

I'm not intending to slur professionals in general, but if you had some slides which you felt were "priceless" to you, then you might not want to let them go anywhere out of your control.

[Stunsworth]

Just to clarify, the 20% of yellow fading over 185 years is only for Kodachrome. The more usual system - referred to as ‘E6’ will fade much more quickly.

Traditional B&W film will be similar, if not better than, Kodachrome in its resistance to fading.

One additional point with regard to scanning silver halide B&W films is that you can’t use software based dust and scratch removal. The scanner IR channel that’s used to identify blemishes sees the film grain as dust (as it’s opaque) and that messes up the scan. Scanning B&W negatives leaves you very familiar with Photoshop’s spot healing tool.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Just to clarify, the 20% of yellow fading over 185 years is only for Kodachrome. The more usual system - referred to as ‘E6’ will fade much more quickly.

Absolutely right. When E6 replaced E4, there was some discussion of whether the newer process was actually less stable than the earlier one.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Note though that some professionals have been known to lose originals or damage them - so you might prefer to try yourself first.

Yes! For this reason, I prefer to do scanning "on site" so the client can observe and be reassured.

[Dave2002]

Yes! For this reason, I prefer to do scanning "on site" so the client can observe and be reassured.

Sadly I have been at the other end, and have on occasion temporarily mislaid material belonging to others, though usually no harm is done, and they eventually get their material back - plus whatever "work" - usually recovering photos from memory cards - they wanted. I don't charge for anything if I am asked to do this and agree - I'm not in "the business".

Hopefully real professionals will minimise the likelihood of this happening.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Great care is needed.

Most old photos are irreplaceable!