This week at ScanDigital we have been processing a number of large slide orders. These orders span our customers’ entire lives and we continue to be surprised by the diversity of the actual slide mounts and formats. This lead me to research the history of slides which I thought would be interesting to share with everyone.

The Kodachrome process, introduced in 1935, was the first commercially successful amateur color film. It produced much brighter color transparencies than previous formats. The film initially was used by professionals, but it gradually gained wider popularity. Some amateurs were using Kodachrome for family snapshots as early as 1940 with many utilizing 35 mm roll film adaptors with common 4×5″ “press cameras.” Color print film at the time had a very high cost of film and processing and short print life. Ektachrome, developed in the 1940s was also a popular format. Ektachrome, is often considered an inferior film to Kodachrome which has better archival qualities and color palette, Ektachrome’s main advantage was that it could be developed on-site at smaller photo labs throughout the country and it could be developed more quickly than Kodachrome.

Amateurs who could afford slide film and projection equipment used it extensively until about 1970, when color print film began to grow in popularity. Despite this, even through the 1970s and into the 1980s the format was prevalent with individual photo enthusiasts producing slides created from their images. While the process was somewhat expensive at the time it was viewed as both the best way to preserve and share your images.

Commercially, slides were prominent until about 1995, color transparencies were the primary photographic medium used for publishing, and were widely used in commercial and advertising. Digital media have since gradually replaced transparencies in many of these applications. The use of slides for artists submitting to juried shows or applying for solo exhibitions, applying to art schools or for residencies (or the like), however, is still nearly universal for a number of reasons, among which is the actual or perceived lack of color fidelity in digital media. photography, reportage, sports, stock, and nature photography.

Anyway, thought I would share my research with everyone. In the last week or so we have seen slides produced spanning approximately 50 years from the mid 1940s through the early 1990s which has been quite interesting!