P3D Re: Realist Slide Storage

[Dan Vint <dvint@xxxxxxxx>]

I've used similar boxes in the past as they are a great way to store lots
of slides with a minimum of space and expense. What always worried me was
the plastic and archival or even detrimental effects that the box may have
on what is stored in it.

I then switched over to archival pages and now have these huge binders to
deal with. Less worry on my mind and much easier to browse the images.

I'm thinking about going back to boxes for storage and I have been looking
at Light Impressions for their archival quality materials. They have
cardboard boxes that are similar in shape and function to these plastic boxes.

www.lightimpressionsdirect.com or 800-828-6216

Note in the 10yrs I stored slides in the plastic boxes I didn't detect any
problems - but I worried about them! Now I think I paid $3-$5 for the
plastic box. Light impressions has a system with the following sorts of
cost for 35mm:

1) Storage box - $9.95
6) Storage trays that fit in the box 6 x $3.95
8 x 6) dividers per tray sold in carton of 50 at $4.55

or packaged nicely at $34.95

They also have formats for medium and large format negs, and slides as well
as stereo views.

Plus there are lots of page systems and other box formats that they
provide. If nothing else it is worth knowing about what is available.

What I have been trying to figure out is the perfect storage system, with
the perfect numbering and retrieval scheme and how to tie that together
with these computerized image scanning and retrieval systems like Image
Axis Pro or PhotRecall. First time when I did all of this (when I was using
the plastic boxes) I wrote my one database application to track the
information about the slide, assign a number and label. I had a 3 part
numbering system that let me get to within in 36 slides of what I wanted.
It went something like this.

1) each box was assigned a number
2) each box had 15 squares that I could use and I numbered them 1 to 15
3) each square in the box held 36 slides numbered 1 to 36

This allowed me to keep full boxes (instead of lots of categories that were
half or less full) and I could get to the slides easily. If I took a large
batch of slides on one trip I would organize (and weed out the bad or
duplicate stuff as well) topics together because it made the data entry
easier and I had some local groupings of related stuff. All the images for
a trip would gathered together in one area as well. that process worked
well until I wanted to go back in and review my old stuff - pages of 20 are
much easier to handle.

Anyway, my database was setup to handle this medium and storage system, and
it generated 2 labels, 1 for copyright and photog id and the other had the
number of the image (1-12-23 for box 1, cube 12, image 23) along with a
short title, and type of film I was using.

This was all back when I shot one format. Now that I have the 6x17, stereo
and some 4x5 I need to find a method that allows me to manage all of these
without resorting to 4 separate standalone databases. Add to this the
confusion and issues of trying to scan all those images and then store the
thumbnail and printable version!

So remind me, why do I like photography???? ;-) 

Between the camera/photography stuff and computers I could loose a whole
bedroom (or I guess I have already lost the space) if I gave it all up!

..dan



At 09:23 AM 9/4/99 -0600, you wrote:
>I've lost the Photo 3D digest with the suggestion about the Plano 3700
>boxes for Realist slide storage, but whoever submitted that suggestion
>should be commended.  It's a great idea, I just picked up one day (and
>ordered 8 more from Cabella's).
>
>The plastic hinges are free-moving hinges, not just the "folded pieces
>of plastic" that so many plastic boxes have.  The box makes 12 different
>compartments once you insert the dividers, each compartment being a nice
>side for 30 or so slides.  I've made some paper subject dividers out of
>recipe cards.  Fantastic!
>
>The whole thing is a much better storage option, in my opinion, than the
>plastic 3-ring binder pages that I've been using.  When you pass slides
>around to friends and family to view, they're such a pain to get back
>into those pages, and after a while the corners of the slides get bent
>from repeatedly inserting them back into the sleeves.
>
>Now I just need a good storage idea for my homemade sepia-toned Holmes
>stereoviews..... any ideas out there?
>
>
>
>Steven Stultz
>
>
>--
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>STEVEN Q. STULTZ
>
>>>> SQ SYSTEMS CONSULTING
> Web Design, Programming, Hardware Support
><http://www.sqsystems.com>
>
>>>> FLETCHER PHOTOGRAPHY
> B/W Photography and Darkroom Services
><http://www.fletcherphoto.com>
>
>

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      ___ /`._ / /     Dan Vint
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