Realist Slides from Digital Files

I make it a practice to save JPS stereo pairs of all of my raw images, just in case I want to try something different at a later time. Here is an example of a JPS stereo pair taken during a Cajun Swamp Tour on a Mississippi River steamboating cruise:

Remember, this pair (along with all the photographs on this page) has been significantly reduced in resolution in order to load reasonably quickly. The original is approximately 3400 x 1700 pixels! The first thing to check is that all color correction, basic alignment, and any window adjustments have been completed using a program like StereoPhoto Maker. Do not, under any circumstances, reduce your original image resolution. If you are saving your files in the JPEG format (.JPG), use no compression or set for maximum quality. Alternatively, you can use a "loss-less" format such as BMP or TIFF.

Since this image pair is obviously not in the Realist-format, some cropping will be required - something that is easy to do in StereoPhoto Maker by going to EDIT ===> CROP ===> CUSTOM CROPPING. The values you put into the cropping windows depend on the height (Y-axis) of your image. My images are normally 1700 pixels high and I use that value for the height window. You use whatever height value is appropriate for your images. The width (x-axis) of a Realist-format image is approximately 91% of the height, so I use 1552 pixels for the width. You can calculate a width appropriate to the height of your images (W = 0.91 x H). Press and hold the LEFT mouse button and use the mouse to slide the cursor right or left, releasing the mouse button when you have the cropping window positioned the way you want it. This is a basic composition tool that you don't have if you shoot slides directl;y! StereoPhoto Maker will "remember your custom cropping dimensions for future sessions, which is a great time saver. At the bottom of this page you will find information on creating slides in other standard formats. Assuming you are sticking with the Realist-format, the cropped version of the pair should end up looking like this:

Now use StereoPhoto Maker to save the left and right images as separate files. The left image of the pair is shown below as an example:

OK, from this point on, we want to focus on getting our Realist-format images (left and right) on to a standard 35mm slide. The format for such slides is 3:2 - which simply means the width is going to be 1.5 times the height. Given that my images are 1700 pixels high, the correct width for a 35mm slide would be 2550-pixels (1.5 x 1700). To make life easier, I used my image processing program (Adobe Photoshop Elements) to make two standard backgrounds - one of which is shown here:

The image is 1700 pixels high and 2550 pixel wide. It is black and the two versions differ in that one has an [L] label in the lower left while the other has an [R]. When the left-image is pasted onto the L version of the layout, we get this:

This image is saved under the original file name for the left image chip. Obviously, you paste the right image to the R version of the layout and save it to the original name of the right image chip. Simply repeat these steps until you have two image files (left and right) for every stereo image you want to convert to slides.

The next big step is to make 35mm slides from your image files. Although it is possible to do this on your own, with only the cost of film and processing, shooting sharp, well-exposed images, with the proper formatting using your monitor is a bit of an art and you are certain to lose resolution. For openers, you might just send them off to a service to have the job done. You can easily find a company to do the work by searching for "35mm slides from digital files" on the web. Whoever you use, be sure to request that the film come back uncut and unmounted! I use Express Slides, which charges $2.00 per slide. This service uses Kodak EPP film, which provides for very fine grain and good color saturation. This means that a stereo pair will set you back $4.00 (not counting slide mounts!), or a bit less if you can find a more economical vendor. This is not all bad as, at that price, you will put a lot of thought as to what slides to use in a show and you will take very good care of the ones you do make! To put things into perspective, at $4.00/stereo pair, you don't equal the cost of passive digital stereo until you have made over 300 slides and it requires over 900 slides to match the cost of active digital projection!

When you get your film strip back from the processor, each frame should look something like this:

If all the scaling worked out, the width of the actual image area (not the black on either side) should be a good match to the width of the Realist slide "window". If this were a standard Realist-format film strip, all the chips would be right up against one another, requiring the use of a precision film cutter to separate them. In our case, we have a lot more latitude. Use a pair of sharp scissors to trim each chip just a bit beyond the image area - like this:

I use RBT plastic mounts for my slides, simply because they are the best available, alignment is very easy, the mounts snap shut, and the mounts are easy to re-use. With conventional mounting there is a lot of precision alignment to assure that you have a properly formatted stereo window. Remember, all this was taken care of when we formatted the original images in StereoPhoto Maker! All we have to do here is to center the LEFT and RIGHT chips horizontally in their respective windows and the stereo alignment should be just fine.

The advantages to this unusual digital ===> slides approach are significant compared with old-fashioned film photography:

When I first embarked on this project, I felt I would be lucky to get passable projection from my digital images. The fact is, the images turned out to be stunning, whether projected or when seen through a Realist-format viewer. To a dedicated film photographer, such a statement is heresy, especially when comparing film with a modest 4 megapixel camera like the Sony P41/P43. You might be persuaded by my Digital vs. Film page, but, if not, why not make a few slides and prove it to yourself? The bottom line is that you can have the best of all possible worlds with digital cameras and film viewers and projection!

While the previous example centered on the Realost format, you can actually generate slides in any format, depending upon how you do the cropping step. The table that follows show how to use the height of your images (H in pixels) to calculate the required width:

FORMAT	HEIGHT	WIDTH	NOTES
Half-frame	H	0.7 x H	Beamsplitter, Loreo, Nimslo
Realist	H	0.91 x H	Realist, Kodak, TDC, etc.
European	H	1.22 x H	Fed, Verascope, Belplasca
Full-frame	H	1.5 x H	Twin rigs, all RBT

You will often see narrower mounts for Realist work which are designed to handle the extreme window issues in close-up photography. You on't need any of these when using full-frame digital originals. Simply set your alignment to handle whatever window situation you have, then crop to the standard Realist format. The Left and Right chips would then be centered normally in the apertures since all window issues were resolved prior to masking.

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