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Faded 35mm Slides and Photos

Always remember that, because of the nature of 35mm slides, there is NO NEGATIVE to go back to when your slides fade. This is the original. There is no duplicate unless one was made. Once these slides begin to fade, they will continue to fade until you have a clear piece of film where you once had a treasured family heirloom

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Dark Fading | Light Fading

Your slides and photos will fade for a variety of reasons. Dyes will fade because they are in the dark ( termed "Dark Fading") and dyes will fade because they are exposed to light (termed "Light Fading), meaning light being projected through the slide. Dark Fading occurs when your slides are not exposed to light. It is caused by a temperature and relative humidity reaction. Dark Fading will occur even if your slides are stored in the light. All dyes have a limited lifetime because they break down because of temperature, light and chemical reactions to materials within the dyes themselves. Prior to the mid-1980s, the Cyan dye was particularly unstable. Reacting to this, the film companies improved the rate of cyan fade. Light fading is caused by exposure to high intensity light such as when a slide is shown in a slide projector.

Kodachrome

While some brands of slide films, such as Kodachrome, have good dark fading stability, projection time should be kept to a minimum. Accumulated projection time and not the length of a particular showing of a slide, is what is important. If a slide is projected many times, this is particularly important. Glass mounts may actually increase the rate of fading rather than protect the 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.

As far as general slide damage, Kodachrome is more stable in dark storage and more subject to discoloration under extended projection use. Ektachrome is just the opposite: More stable than Kodachrome for projection but less stable in dark storage. Slides will often begin to show signs of fading after about two hours of cumulative projection time when subjected to a projection bulb of average strength. The stronger the bulb, the faster the slides will begin to fade, so it is often wise to avoid stronger projection bulbs when less strong bulbs will suffice.

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 images from your smallest pictures and slides will view as large as your TV screen when you play them on your DVD player.

Kodachrome

While some brands of slide films, such as Kodachrome, have good dark fading stability, projection time should be kept to a minimum. Accumulated projection time and not the length of a particular showing of a slide, is what is important. If a slide is projected many times, this is particularly important. Glass mounts may actually increase the rate of fading rather than protect the slide.

  Got any 35mm slides that look like the one on the top, above? 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 restoration and adjustment is a standard feature included in our scanning 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.

  Color film is made up of three layers of dyes, which produce the yellow, cyan, and magenta portions of the color spectrum. The least stable film in the dark is the yellow layer, which is why faded color films frequently have a pinkish hue to them. Once color has faded, it is difficult to restore it, aside from some digital reconstruction processes. The best way to preserve your slides from fading is to keep them in cold storage. The colder the temperature, the longer the slides will last.

1. Leaving them alone.

2. Changing them to Black and White.

3. Using an auto filter with not very good results.