How to Mount Slides

About once a month someone asks this question of Google and lands here, where we didn’t get round to it that time. So here’s how. You will need:

1. Sharp scissors or craft knife.

2. Your beautifully exposed, lovingly developed slide film. 35mm or 120, either will work nicely.

3. Pair of soft cotton gloves (sold in chemists’ shops)

4. A pack of suitably sized slide mounts.

5. A felt tip pen.

6. Your begged or borrowed slide projector and a nice white wall.

You can buy boxes of slide mounts for very little money now. People who use slide film often just process and scan these days, especially since printing has become so difficult and relatively expensive. You can still get Cibachrome prints from Owen Boyd and allegedly from Jessops, although since they have stopped selling everything except silver point & shoots and trendy bags, this might not now be happening.

Please put suggestions for Cibachrome printing in the comments.

So, buying mounts. Try eBay or 7 Day Shop or ring Paul Cordes at Classic Photographics, he probably has some, he does have all things obscure and commonplace. They are extremely cheap at the moment. Digitalab in Newcastle recently had some in a discount bin for £2 a box.

There are two types, with and without glass, and sometimes they hinge, while others have two separate halves that snap together.

There’s been a long running debate about whether glass mounts are useful or not, very similar to the debate about whether or not to use a skylight filter on your lenses.

Glass keeps out the dust but might degrade scanning or projection quality. Glassless is lighter and easier to store. Your choice. If you’re lucky enough to come across any of those lovely old cardboard mounts, you will also need glue or use double-sided sticky tape cut to fit. Or you can go the whole retro way and borrow this handy little tool.

Wearing your cotton gloves, and using a light surface or white paper on top of a cutting mat, identify the dividing line between each frame, and cut through neatly and in one stroke. If you use scissors you might want to practice a few times on the film leader to test sharpness and the length of the usable blade. If you do this frequently it is useful to keep a pair of scissors aside just for this, so you run no risk of sticking tape residue or whatever clinging to your precious transparency. It should go without saying, but 120 film needs longer bladed scissors.

There’s a wrong and a right side to your transparency, and a wrong and a right side to the mount. The letters and numbers across the top of the frames will show you which is front and back. Put all your frames into the mounts the same way around. That’s the right way up, and with the letters & numbers showing the right way around when facing away from you and towards the light when you hold them up to check.

Pull apart the two plastic halves, and gently lift your frame into the slide mount. Most mounts have little guide bumps so it’s easy to tell if they’re straight. Lift the other half over the top to make a sandwich and snap the two halves together: there’ll be a little click. That’s it! Simple.

Lots of mounts have a wrong and a right side with the wrong side a different colour or texture. This is handy for seeing which way around to put them in the projector in the dark. Whichever way around you mount them, do them all the same way.

What’s the felt tip pen for? If you draw a diagonal line across the top of the edges when you have boxed them all in order, it’ll be easy to tell in which order to put them back.

Any questions, comments, additions or suggestions?

Here’s a final gratuitous Agfa wonky pack shot. Enjoy.

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