The Gun Counter

Anyone here with rec's (or cautions) for slide scanners?

I've been putting this off way too long. Boxes and boxes of dad's slides from the 50's, 60's and 70's begging to be digitized... Was reminded of this when a Costco advert hit my email today,

"29¢ per slide.
*Minimum Price is $17.99*"

Ouch. That's about $100 to scan just the "Jeepers" shoe box full at the top of the pile.

A quick look at Ebay shows quite a bewildering array of prices and capabilities advertised. Seems to be tradeoffs in cost, resolution and speed.

We tried one, did a few boxes of scans, and were NOT impressed with the quality.

Of course, that depends on how much time you want to ensure the scanner glass is absolutely clean (BOTH sides - no plastic oxidation film on the inside) - and just how easy or difficult it is to clean both sides of the platten (glass). The easier it is to keep the glass clean (and preferably polished with a glass polisher - my personal preference being 'Glass Wax' in a pink can), the better your scans will come out because when scanning negatives, they pick up EVERY SINGLE blemish, distortion, mark, error, or smudge on the negative.

You have to ENSURE you have NO hairs, dust, fibers, or anything else on the negatives when you start scanning them - and be SURE you handle the negatives with gloves (generally fine cotton gloves to leave no lint, debris or fingerprints on the negatives).

Any hair or VERY THIN fiber (even VERY WISPY, extremely fine hair), shows up on a negative scan as a VERY visible line on the scanned JPG, JPEG, BMP, GIF, PDF, TIF, TIFF, RAW, or whatever format you choose.

You also need to ensure you place the negatives in the proper orientation and on the correct side every single time, or you'll be flipping images afterwards (depending on just how many you scanned until you discovered the error).

I've had mixed results scanning from negatives (actually my wife did all the scanning, I did all the correcting afterwards).

Scanning negatives is a mixed bag. If you choose to do so, DO NOT get in a rush. Take your time, make sure everything is oriented the correct way, blow off the negatives with canned air before scanning, then wait until any and all moisture from the canned air is gone BEFORE trying to place them on/in the scanner/adapter.

One of the best things we discovered is to do the scans no matter how they come out, then figure out which ones you want to print/enlarge/mount & frame, and then concentrate on those photos (we already have double prints of all the photos anyway).

If you're having print photos processed, that's the BEST time to have them do the scanning and to pay a couple extra bucks to get a CD with the photos and you have to do minimal work.

Otherwise, it sounds like you need to pick and choose the photos you're looking to scan and take the time and precautions to do the best scans you can off those negatives (they can always be flipped later if you find out you had flipped the negative).

YMMV!

GOOD LUCK!!