Aging of Color Slides

I have just finished scanning a carousel containing 71 color slides taken in 1961 through 1963. They have all been in the same box for at least the last 35 years and I know that 30 years ago they were all in very good condition. I learned something that I had never heard or read in any book or magazine.

Three of the slides were Kodachrome. The Kodachromes were all in good condition. The remaining 68 were Ektachrome. Some of the Ektachrome slides were in like-new condition. Some were moderately faded. Some were severely faded. Why should some Ektachromes be faded and some not? They were all stored under exactly the same conditions. They were all the same film from the same manufacturer. Looking carefully, the answer became clear. There were slides from six different rolls of Ektachrome and each roll had been processed at a different time. In any roll, if one was good they were all good. If one was bad the slides in that roll were equally bad. Whether the slides aged depended on how well the processing was done.

In the 1960s, Kodak still processed film. I usually paid a premium price to have Kodak processing. The best roll was processed by Kodak. The wost roll was processed by Kodak. One roll processed by Drewry Photocolor was pretty good.

I knew that some color films are more resistant to aging than others. I knew that storage conditions are very important. Heat and moisture are to be avoided at all cost. But I never knew that processing was such an importan factor. (And now, forty years later, I have learned that you could not trust Kodak processing. To me, that's a real eye opener.)

The photo above was taken in 1961. It is of my grandmother holding daughter Nancy. I would call this a case of moderate aging. Using Photoshop, the original colors can nearly be restored although it could never look as good as the original. Alternatively, this could be made into a good looking black and white.

The worst cases of aging of the slides in this carousel were so bad that almost all color was gone. They are beyond repair. The clear moral is that if you have any color slides or negatives, you should have them scanned onto a CD or DVD now. Do not wait.

Do not get the impression that we have lost a lifetime of photographic memories. I never trusted color and took many photos in black and white. About half of the color slides are Kodachrome which is more resistant to fading. I took thousands of photos and if 90% of them disappeared there would still be more than enough left.