Masking Slides for Projection

[Michael W]

I've been doing some copystand work, photographing images out of books to use in the classroom. Most are fine to project as shot but some of the slides have areas I would like to cover up. When copying a square image I end up with parts of the copystand base showing at either end which detracts from the image when projected.
I have some old Letraset tape that I've used in the past but it occurred to me that the brains trust here might know of some better options. Cheap & easy to find is preferable.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Usually I would use silver polyester tape for this purpose. I'm not sure how commonly available it is these days, but large photo dealers like B&H sell it. Art supply shops might have it too.

 

[Stoo Batchelor]

There is a tape made by lineco, called Frame Sealing Tape. It is pealable, grey in colour, but is aluminium when pealed.

It is acid free and buffered to P.H 8.5. with 3% calcium carbonate. I am told that apart from its regular use, it is fantastic to use for masking slides, as it has a perfect straight edge to it (being foil) and will be kind to your slides as well.

The products number is L387-0151. It is 1 1/4 inch X 1000 inch and is made by Lineco inc.

I hope this helps

Stoo

 

[Robert Brummitt]

I also used silver tape. I would remove the trans from the mount, tape it then remount the slide.

 

[Steve Roberts]

Hi,

I tried silver polyester tape at great cost but found the opacity wasn't all I'd hoped it would be. I then used a method suggested by Margaret Salisbury at an RPS event. This involved taking a piece of aluminium foil (kitchen type is fine, although chocolate bar is thinner plus you get to eat the chocolate!), folding it in half to give a straight and flawless edge and then attaching it with a heat-resisting tape (polyester or cine editing tape worked for me). It can be fiddly and involves the dismantling of transparencies (have some new mounts to hand), but I found the results far better than the tape I bought that was intended for the purpose.

Regardless of the actual method used, I think there is a lot to be gained in a slide presentation by changing the aspect ratio of slides from the usual 2:3 and thus putting rather more effort into the composition than is usually done.

Best wishes,

Steve

 

[Michael W]

I like that creative thinking. I eat a square of chocolate every morning (Valrhona Guanaja) so it's easy to keep the foil.
I'm mostly wanting to fix some slides where I was copying square format photos. They never come out well on an uncropped 35mm slide. There are bits of the copystand at either end.