CompuServe Messages

David: I see that you've already had some responses to your question. The answer really depends on what kind of quality you're trying to achieve and how many slides you're going to need. You can shoot them directly off the screen in a completely dark room, but you're limited by your screen resolution and your own photographic ability. And unless you use a sufficiently long lens, you're going to get some screen curvature at the edges of the screen. There are plenty of service bureaus out there that do 35mm slides from computer files. But you'll need to check with them and see what file formats they can handle. An HPGL or DXF file will yield a resolution independent slide, meaning that the resolution of the slide will be based on the capabilities of their film recorder, not on the resolution of your computer screen. If you do a SLD or use a screen capture program, you'll end up with a slide that may be imaged at 2000 lines, but will just be a high-res slide of your 640×480 VGA screen. That's not necessarily bad, however. That's what we print in CADalyst all the time and its fine for computer screen shots. If you're going to make a lot of slides all the time, look into buying your own film recorder. CADalyst reviewed three units in the September issue. Two were quite reasonably priced as film recorders go ($4000-$4500). With your own unit and some programs like HiJaak, you should be able to take anything you have on your screen and output it as a 35mm slide. And they're all very easy to use. David