I sadly lost my mum on November 1st this year (I lost my dad sixteen years ago). She was 90yrs old and had been diagnosed with a lymphatic cancer. The cancer didn’t help but her death certificate states she died from frailty and old age. She didn’t suffer, she wasn’t on any medication at all, and spent her last few weeks, quite content, in a local care home following a fall at home.

I could write a blog on her interesting life. She was from that generation that lived through the second world war and there’s lots to tell. For example, she was split from her parents and evacuated to Cornwall, from Bristol, as a five year old! Her story might be for another time though.

So, as a result of mums passing we’ve had the sad task of clearing her flat. Whilst doing that I found her black and white photo wedding album and with it a box of Kodachrome slides I knew nothing about. The slides were colour images of her black and white photo album.

I hadn’t given this a thought but, back in 1958, when my parents were married, the cost of colour prints, especially from slide film, was exorbitant. Hence the black and white wedding album, printed up from colour slides. The photography had a classic, formal look back then and together with the fashion and hairstyles the black and white images in her album are superb.

That said, I wanted copies of the colour slides. I don’t possess a slide copier so after some research, this is how I set about getting digital images of the slides. First up was slide cleaning. That was quite straightforward. I used my lens blower to take off any loose surface debris and then used neat isopropyl alcohol to clean the slide surfaces. That got rid of a few fingerprints etc.

Next up, I made myself a small light box by sticking some white plastic, from a shopping carrier bag, over a small digital light I have. Then, I fitted my fujinon 80mm macro lens to my X-T5 and set it up on a tripod over the light box. From there it was pretty straightforward copying the slides at iso125 and f5.6.

Post processing took a while as, despite the cleaning, the slides still had lots of blemishes. The images responded well to being manipulated in photoshop with a final few tweaks in Topaz.

I’ve been really pleased with the results. It’s testament to the original Kodachrome slide film and the emulsions, that I can still get the detail out of the slides that I have. Sadly some of the slides seem to be missing and a few were blurred beyond recovery but, I have been left with some lovely old colour images to remember my mum and dad by.

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All images: ©Stephen Hyde 2007-2025 – All rights reserved.