35mm slides in the loft: are they still worth saving?
Kodak slides from the '60s and '70s are still the best-quality family images most people own. Here's why — and what to do with them.
5 min read
35mm slides get overlooked because they're awkward. You can't glance at them, you need a projector or a scanner, and the ones from a family holiday are usually mixed in a carousel with slides of unidentified flower beds.
But they're often the best-quality family images anyone has. A well-exposed Kodachrome slide from 1968 has more image detail than a print from the same era — and the dyes have usually held their colour better than the prints have.
What condition are yours likely to be in?
Kodachrome is famously stable — most Kodachrome slides from the 1950s and '60s still look almost new. Ektachrome is less stable and often shifts pink or magenta with age. Both are worth scanning either way.
Should you scan them yourself?
You can, but it's slow. A decent flatbed scanner does one slide at a time and takes about 2 minutes per slide at good quality, plus dust removal afterwards. A carousel of 80 slides is roughly three hours of your evening.
Why loft storage isn't ideal
Slides are fine in a stable room and terrible in a hot loft. If you can move them into an interior cupboard for the next couple of years while you decide, they'll thank you for it.
Trusted with family archives
Umberdosh Restoration
We digitise family collections by hand from a home studio in Cambridgeshire — archival-grade scans, originals returned tracked and insured, and a fixed rate card so you know exactly what you're paying for.
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