About the Collection
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- From Ektachrome to Digital: The Digitization of MacKinney's
Slide Collection
- Copyright Information
From Ektachrome to Digital: The Digitization of MacKinney's Slide Collection
By the 1950's—when MacKinney began seriously building up his slide collection—several camera
and film
options
existed for amateur photographers who wanted to maximize the potential of both black and white and color
photographic technologies. Cameras became easier to use, transport, and adaptable to diverse lighting
conditions. Thus, from 1945 through the 1950's, cameras intended for commercial sale benefited from smaller,
more streamlined body designs, the development of eye-level cameras, built-in close-up lenses, and flash
attachments and/or flash synchronization.1 More importantly for MacKinney's work, film technology
also evolved
to better accommodate the needs of those photographers aiming for slide projection of color images. In the
1940s, the Eastman Kodak Company developed a new kind of positive film to offer in addition to its existing
Kodachrome film: Ektachrome. A chromogenic camera film (a kind of film which undergoes a developing process
where chemical synthesis produces color2), Ektachrome was more appealing than Kodachrome film for
projection
due to its method for creating color. While Kodachrome films required dye-injection during development,
Ektachrome films contained dyes already built into the emulsion (a mixture of two un-blendable substances on the
photo-sensitive side of the photographic film). Built-in dyes allowed for a simplified development process and
ensured reduced damage from exposure to projector lights.3
Despite their advantages over Kodachrome slides, Ektachrome slides (of which the MacKinney collection is
almost entirely comprised) from their inception to the late 1960's had one remarkable disadvantage: poor dark
fading stability. Although Ektachrome slides withstood projection-induced deterioration, they would fade even
in dark storage at a much more rapid pace than their Kodachrome counterparts—at their introduction, Ektachrome
slides could fade at least 20 times faster.4 Perhaps even
more problematic was Kodak's failure to
inform
professional and amateur photographers of Ektachrome's far inferior dark fading stability.5 Thus,
from 1946 to
1976, photographers using Kodak Process E-1, E-2, and E-3 Ektachrome films were producing unique color
transparencies, but they were unaware that these films could also be subject to severe loss of cyan and yellow
dye while in dark storage.6
Given the uniqueness of the MacKinney slides—they are originals that cannot be reproduced from a
negative—and
potential damage that could result from poor dark fading stability, fungus growth on the emulsion, and/or
excessive handling (slides of any variety deteriorate from physical damage, dirt, fingerprints, and
scratches), the digitization of MacKinney's collection provides users with replicas of the slides in their
current condition while simultaneously protecting the originals. Stored in tightly-packed cigar boxes, the
slide collection was initially given to UNC's Art Department by MacKinney's widow Abigail MacKinney shortly after his
death. Not sure what to do with the collection, the Art Department contacted Michael McVaugh when he began
teaching at UNC in 1964-65. McVaugh suggested giving the master set to the National Library of Medicine of
Bethesda (where it still resides) and, since the Art Department had no use for it, took charge of the
duplicate set. Over the next forty years they were occasionally consulted for various purposes, but they were
not heavily used and astonishingly have suffered virtually no physical deterioration. While the MacKinney
slides' physical integrity remains excellent, they display varying levels of discoloration, ranging from
moderate to severe color shifts toward green and blue.7
Hoping that others might benefit from the collection and concerned about
its long-term preservation, McVaugh
instigated its digitization. The MacKinney slides were digitized from late June through August in 2007 using
the Nikon SuperCool SCU 9000. In order to create a master archive of the images at the highest resolution
possible, the slides were scanned five at a time at 4000 pixels per inch. Copies of these images were then
adjusted in Photoshop; they were sharpened, cropped, and color adjusted. These manipulations of the digital
images of the slides sought to represent accurately the condition of the original slide and to produce a
natural appearance for screen-viewing.8
Copyright Information
This site is intended for educational purposes. The manuscripts represented are not held
by the University of North Carolina. Those seeking provenance, reproductions and
permissions should contact the holding repository.
The scene above depicts a man surrounded by zodiac symbols. The image is a part of
a manuscript held by the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, MS 167, folio 35v.
View complete image and associated data.
