Monday, February 19, 2007

Slides for gardening

Are you into gardening ?
 
We have had several gardening customers over the years that send us digital photos of their flowers and plants to have the photos put on 35mm slides.  They use these as garden club meetings.   Recently we had one that was making 8x10 photo prints of their photos to hand out during their meeting.   They are trying out our slide service as a possible better method of sharing their slides during their meetings.  
 
If you are in a garden club or for that matter any club, you might find making 35mm slides of your digital garden photos can be an effective low cost effective tool for your club meeting presentations.
 
 
 

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Fw: General customer inquiry - slides to England

 Inquiry: i am interested in converting about 20-30 photos into slides, i live in England how much would postage cost? and how soon could i recieve the slides?
Many Thanks, Katie
 
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Answer:
 
  If you upload your files this weekend and I have them early Monday,
I will ship your slides before the next weekend.
 
  We will mail the slides to England for the same charge as shipping
by 2nd Day UPS in USA.   ( by selecting this we will ship your
slides by Global Priority Mail - usually a 5 day transit )
 
If you want to check the charge on this
simple start an order for the quantity of slides you want using our
order form on the following page.   The first screen in our cart
shows shipping charges for different shipping methods.
 
 
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Sending files:
 
I recommend sending your files
using the form on the following link:
 
 
 
 

Friday, October 21, 2005

Getting the best results for fitting an image in a 35mm slide film frame.

Fitting an image to a 35mm film frame can be difficult visualize. The size of a 35mm film frame is 24mm by 36mm. If your image is set to this size it should very nicely fill the complete film frame. If your image is larger in size but still has the same size ratio of 2:3 it should still nicely fill the film frame. (A couple of sizes with this same ratio are: 4x6 and 8x12 )

The problem is that most images are not at that size ratio unless they came from a 35mm camera. So they do not fill a 35mm film frame without either cropping or distortion. Most digital cameras create digital photos which
are shaped differently than a 35mm film frame. Similarly, a Powerpoint's default presentation size is usually: 10.5"x7" and gives an image which fits most computer screens nicely, but it does not fit a 35mm frame.

Here is a photo image used in a Powerpoint presentation in which the photo image is sized to fit on Powerpoint's default page size:


This will not fit correctly on a 35mm frame. The 35mm frame has a longer shape. Here is the same image fit on to a 35mm frame:



The image is full and there is no cropping but the ends of the frame would not be filled by the photo and would come out white. We can fill the ends with either white or black. A black fill is usually preferred because white will usually be so bright around the photo it makes it difficult to view in a presentation. Here is the same image with a black fill:



We call this a "SmartFit" of the image on to a 35mm film frame.

If one really wants the image to fill the 35mm film frame and not show any black, then the image must be enlarged to fill the frame, and then cropped where the image goes past the frame. Here is the image expanded to fill the ends of the frame, but extending beyond the top and bottom of the film frame edges:

The part of the image which had expanded beyond the film fame will need to be cropped off as it will not fit on the film. On the film it will be cropped to look like this:



We call this a "SmartCrop" of the image on to a 35mm film frame.

One other consideration comes from the fact that a tiny part of the edge of the film frame is covered up by the 35mm slide mount to hold the film. If there is an important part of the image which runs along the edge and should not be covered up, then we recommend our standard 8% shrink of the image inside the film frame. This makes sure none of the image is cropped and nothing is covered up by the 35mm film mount. Here is an example of the above image using what we call our standard "8% shrink":


Notice the image sits completely inside a black background fill. This can be important for photos of artwork in order to be sure that not any part of the image is cropped off.

So our standard options are:

  1. SmartFit - no cropping, black edge fill
  2. SmartCrop - expanded and cropped to fill
  3. 8% Shrink - fit inside a black background

Please consider these options when ordering your slides and communicate what you need to the slide recording service.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Even though 35mm slides are an old technology they still offer one of the best ways to share images or give a professional presentation. Today one can take advantage of using digital cameras for their photos, imaging programs for their editing how to display their photos, and then put their digital images on 35mm slides for showing.

Before the explosion of digital photography, most all photos came from traditional film photography. This included many steps for developing, reviewing, and digitizing to achieve the same image quickly offered from a digital camera today. These extra steps created a great delay in arriving where digital cameras place us today in the use of digital photos.

Now we can quickly make use of digital photo advantages for:
  • ease of selection in choosing the best
  • clean up, editing, cropping, and improving of the image
  • use in a layout template with borders and text to help create desired impression
Then the images are ready for use in many different mediums. One medium which should not be overlooked is recording your digital information back into the traditional film 35mm slides.
The advantages of using 35mm slides are:
  • Image quality is high
  • Slide projectors are old reliable technology
    ( Simplicity offers less chance of something going wrong and easier to fix if problems arise)
  • Lower cost - slide projectors are available for less that 1/4 the cost of digital projectors
  • Transportability - a pack of slides can be carried quite easily and slide projectors
    are usually found available at many locations
  • Distribution is easy through mailing of slides
  • Updates of presentations can be done quickly by adding or replacing of existing slides with new ones
With the above advantages in mind, 35mm slide output should be considered as a standard use of all digital graphics along with print.



Galleria Ventures have been making high quality 35mm slides from digital files since 1998. To learn more about making 35mm slides visit: GVmakeslides