Kodachrome scans/prints

Hello- I have just got back my first 35mm Kodachrome 64 slides. There are some reasonably good shots on these and I would like to have prints from a couple. However my cheap and cheerful scanner cannot penetrate them (NOW I read up on the problems of scanning Kodachrome !). Is there any way to get them scanned ? Is a good lab likely to be able to produce scans? Is there a consumer level scanner that can handle them ?


Please bear in mind I am in the UK if you want to suggest a lab .

I'd also like to be able to share the shots with my favourite web community so a CD would be a nice idea.

Cheers CJB

I have the Konica/Minolta scanner and there is a menu that you can select Kodachrome. The reason its tought o scan is that there are the different layers visible on the emulsion side and those have texture, whereas E6/C41 films are smooth and the scanner can read those.

If you have it, turn off any ICE, dust and scratch removal etc options. The scanner intreprets the layers of Kodachrome as one big scratch, so can't scan it.

I've also got a Konica-Minolta scanner (a DiMAGE Scan Elite 5400, FWIW) that can scan Kodachromes with no problem. I use it with VueScan under Linux. With that combination, the IR filtering (VueScan's equivalent to ICE) usually works well on low filtering values, but sometimes produces flaky watercolor-ish results when set to high levels of filtering.

Note that my scanner is a pretty high-end model (among consumer-grade scanners, anyhow; I'm sure it can't hold a candle to a professional drum scanner), and it's last year's model, too; it's been replaced by the next model in the line.

If you're not up for buying an expensive new scanner, lots of services will scan slides, including Kodachromes. I can't suggest a specific lab in the UK, though. If you don't get any specific suggestions, try either a Web search (try searching on "slide scanning service" or something similar) or ask at local pro labs. I'm sure that the better pro labs will be able to produce analog or digital prints and/or good-quality scans, or at least point you to an outfit that will do so.