For a long time, impressions of dream trips, weddings and family celebrations were captured on slides. Some of the small slide frames date back to the 60s, 70s or 80s of the last century. Your memories have already reached an old age where the first or even advanced signs of decay are no longer avoidable. To stop the relentless decline, it is important to store your slides properly.
The fact is: the durability of slides is limited. The slides fade with time and get colour casts. In bad cases, the photographs are no longer recognisable. Sadly this process is unavoidable. But if you store your slides properly, you can at least slow it down. But how? Quite simply:
- No storage in the attic or cellar: Even if it is convenient: You should not store your slides in the attic or cellar. Why? Usually there is high humidity in the cellar, and in the attic you usually have strong temperature fluctuations. Both of these weather conditions accelerate the deterioration of the slide film.
- Store slides in a cool, dry place: The cold slows down organic and physical decay processes. Ideally, your film material should be stored at sub-zero temperatures and low humidity. Such ideal situations can usually only be offered by professional archives – for private households the effort is too great. If you store your slides at 7°C instead of 24°C, you can increase their durability by tenfold. If the humidity is 15% instead of 40%, the lifespan of the slides is doubled.
- Do not store slides in wooden boxes: wood secretes evaporation substances from resin, stain and varnish. These substances attack the slides and destroy them. Your pictures are then lost forever. Instead, sort the slides into plastic slide magazines.
- Ensure ventilation: If moisture does occur during storage, it must be able to evaporate quickly, to not damage your slides. Therefore you must store your slides in a place where moisture can evaporate and warm air can escape.
Storing slides: MEDIAFIX’ digital solution
Surely you are attached to the little slide frames and would like to keep them. But especially if your photographs are already suffering from the first signs of age, you should have them digitised. This way you prevent further deterioration of your memories, regardless of the condition of your slides. Especially colour casts or fading can still be resolved by us at MEDIAFIX: for example, we offer semi-automatic image optimisation, which gives your slides a new freshness of colour. We offer this procedure for just 5p per slide.
Converting slides: MEDIAFIX saves your memories
No matter how you store your slides, even if they are stored perfectly, the film material will eventually decompose. Then your memories will be lost forever. Act quickly and have your slides scanned now – from as little as 10p per slide and with up to 6,200 dpi! MEDIAFIX offers you a best-price-guarantee, to ensure you always get the best deal.
Do you have any questions? Our friendly customer service will be happy to advise you in a personal conversation.
Simply call 020 3904438-0
Our phone hours are:
Mon-Fri 10.00 a.m. - 3.00 p.m.
Source
Wilhelm, Henry (1993): The Permanence and Care of Color Photographs
Klaus Kramer, Fotograph, Graphiker, Fachmann für Archivierung (KlausKramer.de)