I have some old slides that I would like to covert to a digital format. I would like to have them on CD or DVD. I have these slides but will probably never take or have any more. Should I invest in a slide scanner and do them myself, or should I look for a photo processor to convert them for me. I would estimate that I have about 250 or so. I would be a litlle concerned with sending them off somewhere because these are obviously the only copies I have.

If I should buy a slide scanner and do them myself, does anyone have a suggestion as to what I should buy? Thanks in advance. I am trying to get all my old media brought up to something digital and these slides should be the last hurdle.

Edit, changed the size of the window. I'm posting on my mom in laws iMac and I forgot to make the window a normal size. I don't have to worry about that on my iBook.

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Roswell, GA (Atlanta suburb)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2006 11:47AM by rgG.

For 250, I'd look around for a photo place that will do them for you. I had several thousand to scan, and it was worth my while to buy a dedicated slide/negative scanner.

I guess it also depends on how "valuable" the pictures are. A flatbed with an adapter will do a passable job, but it won't give the same quality you'd get from a good dedicated scanner or good pro scans. Personally, if it hadn't been for the shear number of slides I wanted to convert, a flatbed would have been fine (although a much slower process.) At least 80% were of family vacations, "moments in time", etc., where I didn't need really high quality. Other people have taken many more "artistic" shots through the years and want to make sure they're getting top quality scans so they can do further work on the images.

I'm going through this process myself right now. It will take you forever to scan that many slides and your results will probably not be that great. I'm going to have mine done by a professional service. At 50/cents per slide for professional quality scans they are a bargain. Here are the two services I'm considering:

[www.digmypics.com]

[www.larsendigital.biz]

Wow, if I'd had only 250 to scan, I would have gone with one of the services, too. You can barely buy a decent scanner for $125, and there's no way to calculate all the time involved. Unfortunately, when I needed to scan upwards of 3,000, I had to bite the bullet, turn the project into a new "hobby", and try not think too much about all the other things I could be doing with my time.

Thanks for the imput. I think I'll check to see if I can find any place locally that will do the scans for me. I would prefer not to have to mail the originals, but I may wind up doing so.

Thanks again for the advice AlphaDog and davester.

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Roswell, GA (Atlanta suburb)

You can barely buy a decent scanner for $125

You definitely can't get a good film scanner for that. If you are concerned about a service losing your slides, though, you could get a decent film scanner and sell the scanner when you are done with the project (many months later).

I have a Canon S2IS that can focus to the end at the end of the lense. I've been told that it will copy slides into digital format with as good a quality as a high-end scanner. Anybody tried that?

Bear in mind that your local lab will almost certainly send your slides out to have done elsewhere, and they will cost a lot if they do it in house and it is not their main business (plus, their quality will likely be poor because they won't have the latest equipment and trained color correction specialists. If you feel nervous shipping your slides, do it in a few shipments to minimize the chance of losing all of them. Note that I've only had film lost twice in my lifetime, both times by a local lab and never by mail order labs (who I use a lot).

I've thought about this too, but I am *really* hesitant to send my stuff out-- all sorts of things could happen; it could get lost; it could get damaged, etc.

My solution so far has been that for the few that I've wanted to scan, I've used my regular scanner, which has an adaptor. Quality is not spectacular, but usable. If I decide I'm going to do them en masse (as rgG is asking about), I might consider to buy a cheap SCSI scanner-- some of these were actually quite good, like the Nikon series-- and do it that way. Vuescan will work with these scanners under X, and from all accounts, generate excellent results.

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Freya says, 'Hello from NOLA, baby!' (Laissez bon temps rouler!)

I may have decided what I'm going to do. It may not be the highest quality I could get, but It would at least let me see what shape these slides are in. Our local Costco will scan them to a CD for 29¢ a slide and they do it in house. The resolution is 2048 X 3072 which would be fine for my purposes. After I get the disc then I can view them on my computer and order prints on-line from Costco for 16¢ each or from anyone else for that matter. I think I will pick out 25 or so and give it a try to see if they will be good enough. Just thought I'd update the thread. If I have good results, I'll post another follow up for those that might be interested. Thanks to all for the input. Now I need to find that link for the 50 free prints posted a few days ago.

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Roswell, GA (Atlanta suburb)