Tag Archives: #making slide scans

photography, Tips and Technique

Lost Slides from Halloween 1997

The other day I was going through a carton of slide boxes from the mid-1990s. I found a roll from a day out with photographer Mike Gardner to capture New England Central in Connecticut.

On Halloween day 1997, we followed southward freight 608 to New London, photographed a few Amtrak trains on the Shore Line, then followed 608 on its northward return trip to Palmer, Massachusetts.

At South Windham, Connecticut, I made a view on the old Fuji Provia 100 (RDP) using my first Nikon N90S with f2.8 80-200mm Nikon zoom lens.

The soft afternoon sun resulted in a somewhat under exposed slide that never made my final cut, and so remained in the green Fuji box for more than 25 years.

I scanned it with a Nikon LS-5000 slide scanner powered by VueScan 9.7.95 (recently updated from the earlier version of VueScan that I’d been using for a few years), and then imported the high-res TIF file (scanned at 4000 dpi in ‘Fine’ mode) into Adobe Lightroom for adjustment and scaling.

Below are JPGs from the unaltered scan and from my adjusted scan to improve the overall visual appeal of the time. Adjustments included warming the color temperature, adjusting sky denisty, lightening the overall exposure, and contrast control.

I’ve also included a photo of Mike, who is a regular Tracking the Light reader.

Scan of my Fujichrome Provia 100 slide without adjustments. The slide is darker and cooler than I’d like, but captures the train in late autumn foliage.
This is the same scan following myriad adjustements to improve the appearance of the image.
Adobe Lightroom work window showing the relative positions of slider controls that implemented adjustments to my original scan.
Mike Gardner catches the action on Halloween day 1997.

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