Faded Photos & Faded Slides

Got any 35mm slides that look like the one on the left? If you are doing the scanning work on your pictures and 35mm slides yourself, how do you plan on restoring the color to these faded photos?
Old-Photo's prices are so reasonable that you should really leave this kind of color work to the experts. Color adjustment is a standard feature included in our scanning and Slide Show creation service. We will do our utmost to make each of your photos look the very best possible.

Standard Color Restoration for faded photos.
Not all faded photos will respond the same way.
Every effort will be made to produce pleasing color, when possible.
No extra charge.

In some cases, such as when the slides have lost the blue film, we can't do very much with them. We have a choice of:

We do use this  filter with pretty fair results in a lot of cases but sometimes it seems like nothing will help a very bad slide.

Slide Deterioration

Have you gone through your old slides lately? You may be in for a very rude awakening: they may have deteriorated remarkably. You may find that they have faded, been scratched, or has the beginnings of fungus growing on the surface.

The two biggest factors affecting the life of a slide are improper storage and handling.

Excess light, heat and moisture will affect the dye color layers in the slides. Sorry to say, they do not affect the layers equally, so you will find that most slides will have a faded color shift toward either a red or blue hue. The process may be slow at first but once it starts, you had better do something quickly because it is all down hill from here.

Touching the film with your fingers encourages fungus growth. Use of different types of cleaners to remove fingerprints will also cause the slides to deteriorate faster.

If you used Kodachrome film, you are probably lucky because it used a more stable dye process. Kodachrome was developed in 1935. We have had the 35mm Kodachrome slide since 1936. The Ektachrome films and the E process were developed later. It evolved, down through the years to the E-6 process that we have today. Most faded slides will be from the early E process films. The stability of the technology was not as advanced as it is today.

 

Photo Paper Pictures

Photo Paper Pictures will also deteriorate over time. Each day heat, humidity, chemicals in Album papers and cardboard boxes, or exhaust fumes in your garage are silently destroying your priceless photos. Colors in pictures fade, faces turn orange or green or the paper turns yellow. Preserve your photos and 35mm slides SOON by transferring to Digital format. The longer you wait, the more pictures you will lose forever. Your slideshows from your smallest pictures and slides will view as large as your TV screen when you play them on your DVD player.