I need to submit samples of my Photoshop artwork to a local gallery, and they insist that I submit 35mm slides, rather than images on a disk. Of course I could print them out and photograph the prints, but I’m afraid the colors will not remain true. There used to be a photo processing place near here that provided this service, but they no longer do.
So I’m wondering if there’s a way to do it myself, namely print the files onto film at high-res, and put them into mounts.
Does anyone here have any experience with this? What kind of film is best? What resolution? Is this worth trying at all, or should I just keep looking for a place that does this?
The only way to do it yourself would be to invest in a film recorder, which isn’t a trivial proposition (the link gives some idea of what’s entailed). You’re typically looking at a couple thousand just for the film recorder, and you’d still have to take the resulting film to a photo processor for developing (unless you want to invest in E-6 processing equipment yourself).
If you mean trying to print them yourself directly onto acetate or mylar and then mounting them as if they were 35mm slides, then forget it. I tried it once and it was a disaster; a complete waste of time.
If you’re doing gallery work, you should look into giclee printing. Most places that do giclee can also make 35mm slide reproductions. At worst you would have state of the art prints that could then be photographed.
You are working at 300 dpi (or better) and native size, right? I’ve done a few posters in Bryce and rendering to 300 dpi at 18 inches by 24 inches can take a very long time, depending on the image. I once had one that took 36 days to render on my old 200 MHz machine.