What Are 35mm Slides?

If you have found a box of small, square photographic slides among your old family belongings, you may be wondering exactly what they are and what you can do with them.

35mm slides are photographic transparencies, usually mounted in small square frames. Unlike a conventional photographic negative, which must be printed or scanned and inverted to create a normal photograph, a slide contains a positive image that you can view directly when light passes through it.

For many years, 35mm slides were a popular way to take and show family photographs.

How Were 35mm Slides Used?

Slides were designed to be viewed using a slide projector.

People loaded the slides into a projector, which shone a bright light through each image and projected it onto a screen or wall. Family slideshows were particularly popular from the 1960s through to the 1990s.

The small size of a 35mm slide made it possible to store many photographs in relatively little space.

What Is the Difference Between a Slide and a Negative?

Both slides and negatives are made from photographic film, but they produce different types of images.

A negative has reversed colours and tones. It needs to be printed or digitally inverted to become a normal photograph.

A slide is already a positive image. The colours and tones appear as they did in the original scene, so you can view it directly using a projector or light source.

This also means that slides can contain a very detailed original photographic image despite being physically very small.

Why Digitise 35mm Slides?

The problem with old slides is that the equipment needed to view them has largely disappeared. Slide projectors are no longer something most people have at home, and even when you do, the bulbs, mechanisms, and other components can deteriorate with age.

Slides themselves can also fade, collect dust and develop scratches or other damage.

Digitising them converts each slide into a modern digital image that you can view on a computer, television, phone or tablet. You can also make copies, share them with family and create photo books or prints.

What If You Have Boxes of Old Slides?

If you have inherited hundreds of 35mm slides, it can be difficult to know where to start. You don't necessarily need to spend time sorting them all before having them scanned.

We can scan your slides and return them as individual digital image files, making them much easier to organise and share. And don't throw the original slides away. Once digitised, keep them safely stored as the original photographic record.

Those little slides may contain some of your family's most important photographs. If you haven't looked at them for years, it could be time to bring them back to life.