35mm Slide Prep: Organization and Orientation

It is very important that you read these 4 pages from beginning to end.
Please Note: If you do not want to go to the trouble of doing this Slide Prep yourself, we can do it for you for a small fee per slide. Note it on the order form.

Slide Prep, Page #1 Storage Containers
Slide Prep, Page #2 Organization and Orientation
Slide Prep, Page #3 Packaging Slides for Shipment
Slide Prep, Page #4 We can do your slide orientation and stacking for you.

• Slide Orientation and Organization Movie

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• Waxed Paper Box Organizing Movie

• Carousel Preparation Movie

If your slides are loose or in non-Kodak carousels, you will have to put them in stacks to organize them.

First of all, we want you to get your slides in order and put them in approximately 2" to 4"  stacks or "shows."  Two inches  would be about 40 slides per stack. If you want separate stacks to be in the same "show" or folder, mark the stacks to indicate this. Separate stacks of 35mm slides or photos will be considered to be separate "shows" unless clearly noted. For instance, say you have 100 slides that you want in Show #1. Divide the slides up so that you have 40, 40 and 20 slide stacks. Mark the first slide stack as "1A", the second stack as "1B" and the third as "1C" and we will know that you want stacks 1A, 1B and 1C all in "show" number one.
NOTE: We will give you up to 12 "shows" for each job but each additional "show" will cost $1 extra. Mark your "shows" carefully.  We would very much recommend that you do not try to save a couple of dollars by putting over 100 or so slides per show. We can only get approximately 500 slides per DVD disk and you would be much happier with having 6 menu items or more to chose from than just one or two. Take our word for this. The decisions you make now will affect how these images are displayed for quite a while into the future. The more menu selections you have, the easier it will be to find a particular image that you may be looking for in the future. If you have carousels and want to keep all the slides on a carousel together, then we can certainly make an exception to this "rule." If your slides are not divided up into small enough "shows" or chapters, we may have to do this for you just because we have to have some type of organization to the job.

 

Once you have your stacks, look at the slides and determine which way  "faces the screen" when projected.

 

Most times, the side of the slide with the Manufacturer's ID or Logo on it, faces towards the screen. Get all your slides going this way and you will have a 99% chance of being right. This will get your slides all facing "toward the screen." Some slides will even say "this side towards screen." The top slide is going to be the first slide in each show and it will have the "side towards the screen" facing up. The bottom slide in your stack will be the last in each show.

Plastic slides sometimes have "this side towards screen" stamped on the front of the slide. It is hard to see unless you hold the slide at an angle:

 

The slides examples above are all "Fronts" of slides.
They go "towards the screen."

If you are still puzzled about what is front and what is back, see the examples below. These are all "Backs" and should face the bottom in your stack of slides.

 
These examples above are all "backs" of slides and this side should be down and away from the screen. Notice the last slide has a Logo but it also says "View from this side." You view from the back side of the slide. This is an exception to the "Logo faces the screen" rule.

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Your slides will all be oriented so that the side that faces towards the screen is up. Many slides will even have "This side towards screen" printed on the slide holder. The top slide should be slide number one in the show.

Viewed from the Top of Stack. First slide in show.

 

 

Your number one slide in each stack should be on top of the stack and have the side that goes "towards the screen" up. All slides underneath will be facing in the same direction: towards the screen. The bottom slide of the stack should be your last slide.

Take special care that  you have the slides all facing in the right direction. Proper 35mm slide prep will assure that your digital conversion project will be completed just as you desire.

It is very  important that you get these stacks set up so that your slides will scan properly. It is up to you to determine which way your slides should face when scanned. If you follow the directions above, you should be fine. Any slides that are not oriented properly will be the responsibility of the customer.

 

35mm Slide Orientation

1. You have to  determine which side  "faces towards the screen" when projected.

2. Make your stack of slides so that they all have the side that "faces towards the screen" up.

3. The TOP slide in the stack will be the first slide in each "show."

Slide Rotation

1. Regardless of whether you have "Portrait" or "Landscape" slides, you HAVE to turn the slides so that they are all stacked in "landscape" position for scanning. If you don't do this, your image will get cropped off, top and bottom.

2. We will rotate the image so that it will display correctly but you have to get the slides in the correct position for us to scan.

3. If you do not rotate the slides correctly so that we can just grab a handful and scan them, you will have the option of leaving them as is and having the scanner "crop" them, or you will have to pay our operator to do it for you. Figure an additional $.10 per slide, based on ALL your slides. We can't just charge you for the bad slides because we have to look through them all. 

This is the wrong way to Rotate the slides.

Note the slide not rotated, above.

This is the correct way to orient the slides.

All slides should be oriented so that the rectangular film areas are
going in the same direction throughout the stacks.

 

 

This is a Landscape shot.

 

This is a Portrait shot.

This is the kind of scan you are going to get if you do NOT
rotate the portrait slide so that it is oriented the same as the landscape slide.

 

 

Get all your landscape slides rotated correctly and they will be scanned correctly.

 

 

 

 

Get all your portrait slides rotated correctly and they will be scanned correctly.

 

 

 

Click HERE if you have 110 size slides.

You are responsible for having your slides facing in the correct direction for scanning. If your slides are not numbered, we cannot guarantee that they will be in the correct order. Rubber bands break, handfuls of slides get shuffled, etc. If we don't know the correct order or direction the slides should face, we can't fix it for you. The question you should ask yourself is: What will happen if this stack of slides is dropped on a table? How does the technician get these slides back in the correct order and facing correctly? We will do our best but, the responsibility is yours if you don't make the order and direction clear on each slide. Note that we do not match up your numbers with the numbers on the scans. We use an automatic feeder. Occasionally, a slide may not scan because your slide holder is damaged or bent. This will cause your numbering to be off. At these prices, we cannot match up numbers on slides with numbers on images. The main purpose of the numbering would be to make sure the slides are in the correct order, numerically.
 

Slide Prep, Page #1 Storage Containers
Slide Prep, Page #2 Organization and Orientation
Slide Prep, Page #3 Packaging Slides for Shipment
Slide Prep, Page#4 We can do your slide orientation and stacking for you.