Best way? Send out or buy scanner?

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Have
a
H A P P Y
day!

And "may you live all the days of your life"

---Jonathan Swift

If you have enough time I would scan them yourself. You will have more control over the scans. I use my Epson Perfection 3200 for slides. It works great.

How old are the slides? If they are older slides, I would especially want to scan them myself. This way I can sufficiently clean them and make the necessary adjustments.

How many is "hundreds"? If it's going into the thousands (I did over 3,000), you might want to consider a) buying a slide scanner, or b) sacrificing some of the control issues and having them done. I did my project about eight years ago, before the advent of reasonably priced slide scanners that would work with a Mac and before places like Costco could do them for a relatively inexpensive price. Depending on how many you have, you might want to reconsider your plan. You always have the option of rescanning yourself those that didn't turn out well. I've actually rescanned some of mine, just because I figured out how to make better use of the software. Most were fine, though.

You also want to give some thought to what you want to do with them after they're scanned. Any that are more "artistic" and that you might want to enlarge and print do need more cleaning than those that are simply being scanned for the purpose of preserving the memories.

I have the same problem. My plan is to buy a much better FireWire slide scanner on eBay than I can really afford, use it, and RESELL IT. I have no timeline for this plan. Where are you located? I'm 30 mins north of Manhattan. If convenient, we could do this together, and you can use it first. Or make it kind of a "Dealmac Mini" project, if you recall that little fiasco.

I have also had hundreds of slides to deal with along with thousands of old photos, trying to archive them and give digital copies of them all out to the various members of the family. As there was no real time limit I have done them all myself also using an Epson Perfection 3200 Photo. Every month or so I set up the scanner, the MacBook Pro, an external HD, an extra screen and the wireless mouse and keyboard on a large table and spend a few hours more at the project. By doing them all yourself you not only have control but you also get to see them all. It's been great seeing photos I hadn't looked at for 30 years or more.

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My baby pictures.

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voodoopenguin
By doing them all yourself you not only have control but you also get to see them all. It's been great seeing photos I hadn't looked at for 30 years or more.

Now THAT was the part of the project I really enjoyed! If anyone had been watching me as I worked on them, they might have noticed that some of them got a lot more attention than others, too. I still have a few set aside to "do" something special with, although I haven't yet quite figured out what that might be. Unfortunately there were also hundreds that had no particular value to me, and scanning those got very boring very fast.

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voodoopenguin
By doing them all yourself you not only have control but you also get to see them all. It's been great seeing photos I hadn't looked at for 30 years or more.

Did you look any different?

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maco

Did you look any different?

No, used my eyes as I always have.

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My baby pictures.

some of the higher end Nikon scanners have an automatic slid feeder. These show up on ebay every now and then. Others buy new, scan their collection, then sell them off too.

# of Slides multiplied by number of minutes per slide to prepare and scan multiplied by number of minutes per slide to process (for dust, etc.) = HUMONGOUS number. I'd go with having someone do it, unless your time is worth little OR you really want to look at each slide.

If you are scanning through Photoshop, you can use the Crop and Straighten feature. It will isolate sparate images in multiable image scans and straighten them up, creating individual files!

The File > Automate > Crop and Straighten Photos.

Might also be in PS Elements?

[www.planetphotoshop.com]

Quote
M>B>
If you are scanning through Photoshop, you can use the Crop and Straighten feature. It will isolate sparate images in multiable image scans and straighten them up, creating individual files!

The File > Automate > Crop and Straighten Photos.

Might also be in PS Elements?

[www.planetphotoshop.com]

I know it went into PSE 3.0, so it's probably still there in PSE 6.0, which I still haven't gotten. It was a bit buggy initially, but maybe it's improved. Well, I guess I shouldn't say it was buggy, but you did have to make sure there was white space between the scanned images so it could "tell" where one left off and the next began.

I, too, have hundreds of slides (about 8 - 12 carousels full) to scan. At work we have a Nikon auto-feed slide scanner. When it works, it's great, but it can be quite finicky to get working. I've had to rig it up so that it wouldn't pull too many slides at once. It's a well documented problem for the particular model I have.

The scanner is similar to the ones here, although I forget the exact model #:

[images.google.com]


Here's a link to some of the slides I scanned:

[people.haverford.edu]

That crop and straighten thing is awesome! I'll definitely be using that as I slide my hundreds and hundreds of photos!

AD,

It seems to be working well in PS CS2.

You are right with that space between the photos! Among the many differences between a computer program and the human brain?

I did say that "It would isolate 'SEPARATE' images".

I might also add these "mass" scans should be done at a high DPI because they will be cropped and possibly enlarged.

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The UnDoug
I, too, have hundreds of slides (about 8 - 12 carousels full) to scan. At work we have a Nikon auto-feed slide scanner. When it works, it's great, but it can be quite finicky to get working. I've had to rig it up so that it wouldn't pull too many slides at once. It's a well documented problem for the particular model I have.

The scanner is similar to the ones here, although I forget the exact model #:

[images.google.com]


Here's a link to some of the slides I scanned:

[people.haverford.edu]

Some of those images are really cool. Would you consider sharing them on a site like flickr.com? I especially like ones of Hawaii & of the planes.

Those are great slides, The UnDoug. And the colors are quite amazing -- they look like they were taken yesterday (except for the models of cars).

The free, now abandoned, Polaroid Dust and Scratches plug-in for Photoshop is quite remarkable.

One word: Costco.