Our Service
Preserve & Share Your Memories
You won’t beat The Slide Converter on Price, Conversion Quality and Service. For almost two decades we’ve been converting slides to digital formats, using professional slide scanning equipment. We employ automation of the slide handling while still individually focusing and exposing each slide. We scan at a higher resolution than the image resolving ability of the film itself so you will not lose any detail.
Place your order and we’ll send you sufficient packing boxes to ensure your slides are sent safely and processed in the correct order. The boxes are also a great way to compactly store the slides when they have been scanned.
Our machine incorporates an anti-static air cleaning stage which removes loose dust and debris. Each slide then progresses to be individually focused, exposed for the scan. The scanned images are reviewed and adjusted for age-related colour casts and exposure.
We have years of experience of this process and have developed many correction profiles for common issues e.g purple cast or slides which have gone red with age.
Step By Step
Getting your slides converted with The Slide Converter is simple, leaving you to enjoy seeing and sharing them again.
Step 1
Pricing and ordering
It only takes a second to find the cost based on your estimated slide count. We explain all the options on the order form. You don’t pay any money when ordering so why not start the ball rolling today!
Step 2
Getting your slides to us
We’ll send you out free packing boxes to organise and safely post your slides back to us. We confirm when the slides arrive and give an estimated turnaround time.
Step 3
We process your slides
Your slides are scanned using the latest automated scanners. Our machine focuses and exposes each slide individually, allowing for different mount thicknesses and bowed film. We crop the black border then apply exposure and colour correction.
Step 4
Payment after scanning
To save you from counting every slide, we invoice you after scanning. We’ll email an invoice for secure payment online via card, bank transfer or Paypal. You can also pay when ordering if you prefer (e.g. very small order)
Step 5
Receive your slides
Your original slides and their digital copies on USB or DVD will be returned in the post. Images can also be sent via an internet download link which you can share. We hold a digital copy for a few weeks as an extra safeguard.
Free Return Postage
No Minimum or Maximum
Free Samples
Contact us if you would like to receive a free sample of our work, for up to 5 of your slides.
Slide Types Accepted
We scan any slide mounted in 50mm mounts, they can be card, plastic or glass.
Protective Packing Box
Colour & Exposure Correction Included
Our processing will restore the colour of old slides.
Since 2003 we have been the UK’s leading slide conversion specialists, it’s all we do. Due to continual investment in the latest scanning hardware and development of custom automation, we set the standard in quality and value.
What file format and size will the images be?
Our recommended option, used by almost all customers for maximum ease of use and compatibility across all computers, smartphones, internet and social media enabled devices, is JPEG so we will use this unless you tell us otherwise.
The standard images we provide, after cropping of black borders, will be around 5000 x 3500 pixels. To indicate what this means in reality, an HD TV has a resolution of 1920×1080 and even a 4K TV is only 3840×2160. Another comparison is to a digital camera; the images we provide would be equivalent to around 17 megapixels. The generally accepted equivalent resolution of slide film is around 12 megapixels or up to 15 for specialist film stocks such as Fujifilm Velvia. We are therefore scanning slightly beyond the resolution of the film so every detail is captured.
We can support any other file formats and resolution you might request. A few of these rarely requested options do appear on the order form under “additional processing” and you can read about these further down if they might be of interest.
How do you want to receive the images?
We will save your digitised slides to any of the media below, whichever option(s) you select, the digital images file size and quality will be idential. Below are the considerations for each option:
DVD
Your photos are saved on a DVD which can be used in a DVD player or any computer with a DVD drive. The charge mentioned on the order form is per "set of discs" so if your collection runs to multiple discs this is included in the cost of 1 set. Each disc holds around 800 JPEG image files. Set-top DVD and Bluray players will automatically play these images as a slideshow, allowing you to skip back and forth using the DVD's remote. Please note that DVD players have a limited display resolution compared to an HD TV so check if your TV can accept a USB stick, its far better to use this method to view images. The images on the DVD are the same JPEG image files that you would get on a USB stick or internet download. We also suggest selecting the DVD option as a way of keeping a backup of the photos; it can be easily slipped inside a photo album or held in a safe place in case you ever need to recover from data loss.
USB
Your photos will be saved on a quality Sandisk or Kingston 32GB USB3.0 memory stick, which you can use in any computer or smart TV which has a USB slot. You should always take a copy of the pictures to a backup device; dont let the USB stick be the only copy you have. You can select the DVD option as a potential backup method. On the order form, there is an option to provide your own USB device if you prefer.
INTERNET DOWNLOAD
Your photos will be sent to you via an internet download link. The link will work for 28 days and during this time you can forward the email link to anyone else who you want to be able to download the files. This is useful if you have far-flung relatives. As always, it is essential to back up the image files so if you do not already have arrangements in place it would be best to order a DVD or USB copy too.
Additional processing options
Just give us a call or send an email if you have any questions of specific requests.
The “Save images to named folders” option can be helpful when organising a large collection. We create folders based on numbered slips of paper, inserted as you pack the slides into our boxes. You just email us a list of the folder names to be used for each of the numbered slips. We’ll send additional instructions if you order this option.
HD TV optimised pictures. Only suggested if one is constrained to mostly viewing the images on a set top DVD player. We provide an ADDITIONAL set of the images on DVD which has been specifically resized to be more successfully viewed on a set top DVD player. This option is rarely needed since most people have a modern “smart TV” which has the ability to accept a USB stick which gives a far superior picture compared to that offered by a set top DVD player. Without this option, the normal high definition images we supply can take 5-10 seconds to appear on screen. This option is NOT required if you are using a computer or laptop DVD player.
TIFF FILES. We only suggest this option if you already routinely shoot and edit in RAW or TIFF and are aware of the additional processing steps and software you will need to make good images. The TIFF files option replaces the normal full-size JPGs. TIFFs are border cropped but not processed, enhanced or corrected in any other way.