How to Digitize 35mm Slides at Home With Your Phone
Slides are positives — the picture is already the right way round inside that little cardboard or plastic mount. The trick is lighting them from behind and cropping tight inside the frame. Here's how to digitize a carousel of slides with just your phone.
Digitize a mounted slide
- Set up an even backlight: a lightbox, or a tablet/laptop showing a plain white page at full brightness.
- Hold the slide flat against the light, emulsion side consistent, so the whole frame is evenly lit.
- Capture. Reveela treats the slide as a positive, crops inside the mount so the cardboard border is gone, and normalizes the backlight to even color.
- Adjust exposure for slides that came out dark or bright on the original film.
- Save and continue through the box; export at full quality to your Photos when finished.
Slides vs negatives — what's different
How each film type is handled
| Film type | Inverted? | Orange cast removed? |
|---|---|---|
| Color slide / transparency (positive) | No — it's already positive | No cast to remove; backlight is normalized instead |
| Color negative | Yes | Yes — the orange film-base mask is removed |
| Black-and-white negative | Yes | No cast; balanced to clean grays |
A stack of slides goes fastest in batch mode — set the light once and work through the box, each one cropped and saved as you go.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a slide scanner or a projector?
No. A backlight behind the mounted slide and your phone are enough — the app crops inside the mount and balances the color.
Will the cardboard or plastic mount show up?
No — slide mode crops inside the frame so you get just the picture, not the border.
What about very dark or faded slides?
Adjust exposure after capture. Deeply faded film has limited color left, but an even backlight gives you the best starting point.