Throughout the month of January, we are scanning and sharing a vintage film slide each day. This week we are sharing vacation photos from California in the 1960s.
Today includes our month of scanning and sharing vintage film slides. It was an interesting and slightly exhausting project. Now that I can see a month's worth of images on my computer, I have decided that film slides have the richest colors. Our digital world just can't compare.
Since we launched our film preservation services last fall, we've talked a lot about preserving family photographs and film slides. Today we wanted to spotlight the editing process of our film preservation services, so we used a photograph of our namesake Gerald from the late 1950s to demonstrate how it works.
The top image is the raw image after it was scanned and digitized. The second image is after some minor edits -- we cleaned up the dust and rust spots. We went a step further on the bottom image and edited it using color retouching and cropping tools.
Some customers might like to have all three images digitized for their personal collections. It is nice to have options when displaying family photographs, and it's even better to have these images archived for future generations to treasure and enjoy.
If you are interested in our film preservation services, our basic scanning and editing package starts at $75 for 50 photographs. We also offer custom heritage photo books if you'd like to preserve your family memories.
Ready for us to get started on your film preservation project? Contact us here.
Raw photograph after initial scan.
Basic editing.
Advanced editing.
We've been scanning more film from our family archives this week.
All of these are of Palos Verdes, California around 1960. The beautiful church is Wayfarers Chapel. The last photo taken from the car is really neat as well...love seeing all the old cars!
We'll be back with more next week!
Photo preservation is so cool.
Who doesn't have a box of film slides that has been sitting on the top shelf of a closet for years and years? That dusty container holds precious memories that have been all but forgotten. Many of the people in the images have been gone for at least a generation. Homes, furnishings, cars and gardens look different. Colors and styles have changed.
By preserving these images, we bring the past back to life. Perhaps we realize that so much of what is gone has come back in style again. Perhaps we see something that inspires us. We reconnect with family and friends we haven't seen for decades. For the first time, we "meet" grandparents and great-grandparents who gave us our appearances and personalities. We discover our love for 1960s Cadillacs or mid-century furniture. We decide to work on our posture. We shop for classic clothes that we hope will still look good forty years from now. We turn off the TV and put down our iPhones. We live for today.
Film slides won't last forever. Even if they have been stored in their original boxes in a climate-controlled space, they are very susceptible to fading, dirt and scratches. As someone who considers these images to be priceless, I recommend preserving digital and print versions of every image. From there, make multiple copies, share with family and friends and store at least one copy of the digital files in a fireproof safe.
Last summer, I started preserving our family slides and discovered I had a passion for the process. Gerald & Joan now offers film preservation as one of our service lines, and we'd love to help you preserve your family's images. More importantly, we want to encourage you to get those boxes out of the closet. The memories are much too special to lose forever.
