Reversal film

In photography, reversal film or slide film is a type of photographic film that produces a positive image on a transparent base.^[1] Instead of negatives and prints, reversal film is processed to produce transparencies or diapositives (abbreviated as "diafilm" or "dia" in some languages like German, Romanian or Hungarian). Reversal film is produced in various sizes, from 35 mm to roll film to 8×10 inch sheet film.

A slide is a specially mounted individual transparency intended for projection onto a screen using a slide projector. This allows the photograph to be viewed by a large audience at once. The most common form is the 35 mm slide, with the image framed in a 2×2 inch cardboard or plastic mount. Some specialized labs produce photographic slides from digital camera images in formats such as JPEG, from computer-generated presentation graphics, and from a wide variety of physical source material such as fingerprints, microscopic sections, paper documents, astronomical images, etc.

Reversal film is sometimes used as motion picture film, mostly in the 16 mm, Super 8 and 8 mm "cine" formats, to yield a positive image on the camera original. This avoids the expense of using negative film, which requires additional film and processing to create a positive film print for projection.