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35mm slides

The carousel in the closet — decades of vacations, holidays, and birthdays you haven't actually seen since.

Slides are the trickiest film we handle, and the most rewarding. They're old-school, finicky, and unforgiving — tiny frames that demand a careful, slower process than prints ever do. Most have been sitting in the dark for thirty or forty years, so nobody's looked at them in a long time. Some are stunning. Some have shifted or faded more than you'd expect. We treat every one as if it's the keeper until we've actually seen it — because often, it is.

A woodcut-style illustration of a 35mm slide in a cardboard mount
Did a human look at this?

Yes. Every single slide. By hand.

Slides hide their secrets — you can't really tell what's on one by holding it up to a window. Big mail-in labs run them through a machine and never actually see them. We do. We open every slide, look at it with our own eyes, and correct it one at a time. So when we hit one that stops us — a frame you forgot existed, a moment that turns out beautiful — we tell you. We point it out, talk it through, and stay connected with you until you're happy. The same people you talked to before you ever sent them in.

What we do with 35mm slides

Resolution
Slides are scanned far higher than prints — often several times the DPI — because every detail lives in a frame the size of a fingernail. That resolution is what lets a tiny slide become a sharp, full-size image you can actually print.
Built for film
Slides don't go through a photo feeder. We use dedicated film scanners made for exactly this — the kind of equipment that pulls real detail and true color out of a transparency, not a flatbed approximation.
Dust is the enemy
At this magnification, a speck of dust looks like a boulder. We clean each slide, use infrared dust-and-scratch detection to map flaws, and remove them carefully — without smearing away the real grain underneath.
Takes more time
There's no rushing slides. They're finicky and they're scanned slowly, one frame at a time, with settings checked and reapplied for each batch. The right way takes longer — and it's the only way that's worth doing.
Raw + corrected
You get both: the untouched high-resolution archival master and a cleaned-up version with color, exposure, and contrast brought back to life.
Color rescue
Decades in the dark shift slide film toward magenta, blue, or a heavy haze. We rebalance carefully — never baked into the raw scan — to recover what the moment actually looked like.
Dates & orientation
Slides are automatically dated and turned right-side up. Dates and names are embedded into each file, so they land in the right spot on your timeline.
Restoration included
Every slide gets basic restoration at no extra charge — color correction, exposure, dust removal, gentle cleanup. Not an upsell, not a separate tier. It's just what a scan is here.
Delivery
One link drops everything into your Google Photos or Apple Photos — or download the files straight to your computer. Your slides come back organized in their trays or sleeves. They never leave the neighborhood.
Why it's different

Your slides stay yours, start to finish.

Your trays never get shuffled into a bin with hundreds of strangers' film at some far‑off warehouse. We handle your originals ourselves, here in the neighborhood, and pass along the old‑school tricks for keeping them safe — not optimizing to run them through a machine alongside everyone else's.

What a mail-in lab won't do

The right time

Slides take as long as they take. We'd rather scan them slowly and correctly than rush a queue across the country.

One person

Every slide seen by hand by someone you've met — not an assigned tech in a far‑off lab.

Pay when happy

You see your scans first and only pay once you're happy with them — no deposit games.

All included

High-resolution scanning, dust removal, and color rescue come standard, not as a line‑item upsell.

Common problems we fix

Color shift

Slide film drifts toward magenta, blue, or a milky haze over decades. We rebalance it back toward how the scene really looked.

Dust & scratches

Magnified dozens of times, every speck shows. Infrared detection and careful cleanup remove them without blurring detail.

Underexposed & dark

Slides that look hopelessly dark held up to a light often hold far more than you'd think. We pull detail out of the shadows.

Mold & sticking

Slides stored in damp closets can spot or stick in their mounts. We handle the fragile ones with extra care.

Pricing

$1.50 per slide

High-resolution scan, dust removal, color rescue, originals returned. Priced higher than prints — slides take more time, more care, and far more resolution.