Slide Design Requirements

Types of files to send:
We accept just about anything, preferably 8-bit RGB or Grayscale. Tiff, Jpeg, Photoshop, BMP, PIC, Illustrator, PDF, PowerPoint etc.

Resolution or size:
The PPI setting makes no difference, 72ppi or 1200ppi are all the same. What makes a difference is the number of pixels in the image. We recommend at least 1200 x 1800 pixels, up to 2732 x 4096 pixels for 35mm slides, but those numbers are not written in stone. If the image looks good on your monitor when viewed at full screen then it should be fine as a slide for most purposes (like juried art shows or similar submissions).

Bottom line: For good quality 35mm slides we recommend files 1800x1200 pixels or larger. Smaller files can be acceptable if there is not much fine detail in the image. Smaller pixel size images will appear less sharp on film.

Cropping:
By default your image will be rotated if necessary to produce the largest image on the film, scaled so that nothing is cut off by the mount, and if the image does not fill the frame the extra space outside your image will be black by default. If you want the image to fill the live area you will need to crop the image to to a 2:3 aspect ratio.

Color balance:
The film recorders are balanced to a standard neutral balance. Your files should be in either Adobe 1998, or sRGB color space for best match. (If you don't know what this means, then you probably don't need to worry about it.)

It really doesn't matter much what format you send, but these are the most common problems:
I. Files should be sent to us in RGB color space, not CMYK.
II. Color space should be either Adobe 1998 or sRGB. Other profiles will cause unpredictable results.
III. PhotoShop files should be flattened, with alpha channels removed. We can fix these things, but if we don't recognize it, there could be a problem.