 Michael McCook |
How can I clean color slides? I have hundres of color slides (mostly Kodachrome, but not all) which I did not store properly over the years. Now they are spotted with mold & mildew (least that's what I think). Is there any way to clean them?
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John A. Lind |
Michael, First and foremost . . . If you have slides that are not affected by this, quarantine the affected ones immediately and store the two groups separately! You don't want mold spreading to more of them. I don't have very good news for you. I'm nearly 100% certain the spotting is mold. Either way, both eat into the film emulsion, etching and permanently damaging it. Even if you do get them cleaned off, the best you can hope for is stopping any further damage to them. Hopefully it's not too severe. You're not alone with this problem. Contacting one of the following: You want to talk to someone in their archive area who is an expert with archives and archival methods for restoring and preserving film. They may be able to help you with some home remedies. If you pay to have them cleaned, it will likely be expensive. It's time consuming, must be done by hand, and the slides must be dismounted and remounted in new slide frames. If you do find a method for cleaning them yourself, dismounting and remounting slides is not that difficult. Pakon and Wess both make excellent plastic mounts that are easy to work with, inexpensive and they don't require any exotic tools, just some care when handling the film chip. I strongly recommend against trying something without verifying from a reliable, expert source that the methods used, especially cleaning materials/chemicals, won't damage them. You don't want the "cure" to be worse than the "disease." -- John
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Michael McCook |
John, thanks for the advice. I have already separated the bad slides. Your recomendation to contact a museum, etc. is a good idea, I'll try that. I'm hoping I can (at least) get them clean enough for a good scan and let "Digital Ice" work it's magic. But the thought of using Photoshop to finish the job on all those slides is overwhelming. Not to mention all the unmounting and mounting. This is a tough way to learn a valuable lesson about storage.
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