A slide is a photograph that is created on a transparent material. This is a positive print, presenting true colors, developed using a photochemical process.
The traditional slides were obtained from the cutout of the frames of a film. These cutouts were then framed in cardboard or plastic for easy storage and projection. In addition to standing out for their sharpness, these prints made on transparent media were valued for their resistance to the passage of time: a slide does not usually lose its colors, unlike what happens with photos printed in color. See Abbreviation Finder for acronyms related to slide.
An overhead is an old still image format, used by teachers in primary and secondary schools until the videocassette took over in the 1980s, as it was less expensive and offered more features. Something similar happened when the DVD and, later, the Blu-ray hit the market.
Between the 1940s and the 1980s, with filmstrips, it was easy and inexpensive to broadcast films for educational purposes recorded on 16 millimeters, since they did not require much storage space and offered a high speed of rewind, a mandatory action to replay. use them. As if these features weren’t attractive enough, they were very shock resistant and therefore didn’t require constant maintenance work. In fact, even today there are those who continue to use them.
The first machines to project slides consisted of a mechanism that allowed the transparency to be extracted from a lateral sector so that the next slide could be inserted. Then came projectors that use disks capable of playing numerous slides automatically.
Regarding its history, we must go back to the beginning of the 20th century, when the technique called Autochrome appeared, which allowed color slides to be obtained through the reproduction of an additive synthesis . Two of its drawbacks compared to today’s slide characteristics were poor definition and limited color resolution.
Later, the technique known as Kodachrome arrived on the market, which did offer vibrant colors thanks to the use of a subtractive synthesis and the application of three emulsions, so that almost the entire color spectrum was covered. In 1935, it was the technique used for 8 and 16 millimeter tapes and for 35 millimeter slides.
At the beginning of the forties, it had become very popular, but certain color defects and its poor durability made it necessary to create new techniques, and thus Ektachrome and Fujichrome emerged, which allowed for many years to document trips and events that would remain immortalized.
Color print photography succeeded in displacing the slide in certain areas, especially in the home setting, although in many professional fields it remained the preferred format, as mentioned above. The advantages of digital storage, on the other hand, make any physical medium seem inconvenient.
Currently, the idea of slide is usually used to name each of the images that are part of a presentation created with software. Programs like Microsoft PowerPoint allow you to develop presentations with multiple slides, which can include photos, graphics, text, animations and other content.
A writer giving a lecture on tips for creating a novel, for example, might support his dissertation with a presentation showing that was put together with a computer program. The author, with the help of a computer and a giant screen, can show the different slides with her suggestions.
“Slides”, finally, is the title of an album that the Argentine singer and guitarist JAF presented in 1990. Thanks to its sales, this album became a Gold Record.
