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Coverting slides to digital

Satchmo

Satchmo

Why do they call it a Power Ranger???
Joined
Mar 20, 2006
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Sailing the Seas of Cheese....
The wife wants to convert some slides for her parents anniversary. It started out as only a few, so I was just going to send them in for $50. Turns out there 1000s, and my parents could probably match that amount.

Sooooo... I am contemplating doing this myself (hopefully as a side project and not a second job). I have seen several different methods: Flat bed scanners, stand alone USB converts, and camera attachments that you can use your digital SLR.

I am leaning toward the digital camera attachement. I heard it is cheap, decent quality, and very quick. What experiences do you guys have with this? I do not need professional quality out of this. Speed is the top priority :)
 
My dad used to have a flatbed scanner with a slide attachment. It would hold 4 slides at a time I think, so the speed limiting factors were the speed of the scanner, and how quickly you could swap out the slides. I don't recall though if the scanner software was smart enough to recognize the individual slides, so you'd have to use a photo editor afterward to crop the individual slides out if you needed them that way.
 
If you want to digitize these slides with the least possible effort (not a bad thing at all), and if you are after good but not necessarily pro level results, then I would agree that a slide duplicator would be a good option for you. Slide duplicators are actually old school technology. They date back to the age of film when people produced negatives of slides that they wanted to print. If you use a slide duplicator, be aware of your light source. Make sure that you do not point the camera at a light source that will affect the colours of your slide (e.g. sunset, traffic lights, etc...). Also, while slide duplicators are simple to use, be prepared to spend some time on this project. It sounds as though you have a lot of slides there.

If you decide to go the route of the scanner, pm me. I can give you some ideas on what scanner to look for and on which software to use. There are good reasons to go the scanner route. A dedicated film scanner can give you the best possible results. And, you can also batch scan, assuming that you have the appropriate attachment. But you have to realize that scanning is an art unto itself. And it can be very time consuming. In order to get the most out of your scanner, you do need to learn to use the scanning software. And that can take time. You also need a properly calibrated monitor. It is amazing how different the same file can look on different monitors if they are not properly calibrated. All this is to say that even the best scanners can be used to produce bad scans. And don't even get me started on the battle against dust that anyone who scans regularly must wage on a daily basis. But, if you are after the best results, a dedicated film scanner is really the only way to go.

So, long story short, the slide duplicator route is probably a good one for you. If you decide to go the scanner route, feel free to pm me for ideas about how to get started. Good luck! The time you spend on this project will undoubtedly be worth it.
 
I'm doing a similar project right now but only with a few hundred slides. I went with an Epson flatbed scanner for under $100 and the quality is amazing. The downside is it only scans 4 slides at a time with the attachment. The scanning is easy but the cleanup (dust removal, color correction, etc.) is more time consuming.
 
I did all mine with an Epson scanner, 4 slides at a time. But now, I am really glad I went the slower but higher quality route. I have since printed a few of them out onto 8x10 and they look amazing!
 
The very quickest but not cheap way is to get a Nikon film scanner with the slide loader adapter. It will accept 50 slides and scan them automatically. I am thinking in investing in one of these, they run around $1200 with the adapter. I have something like 15,000 slides to scan, and my brother-in-law has probably the same amount. We could scan all the slides, and still sell the scanner for probably near what we paid for it. Even if it was $200 less, $100 each for scanning that many slides is cheap.

The Nikon Coolscan IV runs about $400, the Coolscan V about $1000. Finding the slide feeder is tricky, though. And they're spendy. My niece has used the IV at school with pretty good results.
 
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