Tech Smart: Here are two fast and easy ways to scan your old slides

ktla ^ | Rich DeMuro

[BenLurkin]

One is a $140 digital scanner while the other is a free app called SlideScan.

The app is unique in that all you need to scan your slides is your iPhone or Android. It works really well, but we found that the process is more time consuming and the final results could be hit or miss.

As for the digital scanner, it is more expensive since it requires you to purchase the equipment (the model we tested is $140), but the final results speak for themselves. The scanner is fast and efficient and you don’t have to waste any time on rescans as you might with the app if they don’t come out as well as you thought.

[Gay State Conservative]

later

[aquila48]

Bookmark

[Red Badger]

Or send them to Memory Box.................

[Fresh Wind]

Many complaints at the play store, mostly about the cost.

[fireman15]

The scanner that I have which is now over ten years old and still does an excellent job. In addition to photos and documents, it has slide and film adapters with a light that comes on in the lid. It has always done a much better job than taking pictures with a digital camera or phone to reproduce photos.

[Rurudyne]

The quality of a scanner is entirely dependent on the quality of the optics and the size of the sensor.

Cheap optics will yield soft detail with sometimes meddling contrast. You have to stop them down to get the best results.

A small sensor may boast a lot of pixels but just like a fine grain film in a small format the limit will still be imposed by the optics.

Even the best prosumer optics will lay down and die at 100 to 150 line pairs per millimeter resolved, though some lenses achieve higher (the better Pentax SLR pancake lens was one of these, and could, IIRC, produce 200-ish lppmm at f5.6 or so).

A purpose built slide copy lens with a large sensor DSLR may be the best bet if you don’t want to plunk down bucks on a good film scanner ... especially if you already own the DSLR.

[Blogatron]

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[libh8er]

Back when I was shooting film (Velvia, Provia..) I had a Nikon Coolscan IV and it made wonderful scans of slide film. As DSLR’s eventually replaced film I stopped using it.

[Bell Bouy II]

2 much $$

[kvanbrunt2]

The scanner that I have which is now over ten years old and still does an excellent job. In addition to photos and documents, it has slide and film adapters with a light that comes on in the lid. It has always done a much better job than taking pictures with a digital camera or phone to reproduce photos.>>> What brand is your scanner.

[tallyhoe]

I have a cannon slide scanner works really well and you can scan 4-6 slides each run.. The software is good also.

[Jane Long]

I scanned all of our old slides (most were my Granddad’s, from the 40s/50s), a few years ago.

My scanner had an attachment that the slides easily fit into.

Then, they would save as individual jpegs.

Have loved sharing and looking at these images, over the years.

[fireman15]

It is a Canoscan 8400F. Most of my other scanners have been in Epson multifunction printers. Even thought they are newer, they are not quite as good in my opinion. This one is actually from over 15 years ago which is ancient in electronics time.

High speed. Exceptional versatility. The feature-rich CanoScan 8400F Color Image Scanner lets you produce superb high-speed scans of a wide range of materials. Now, you can easily scan valuable photos, important documents, books, old slides and even medium-format film. Your results? A spectacular 3200 x 6400 color dpi resolution (max.) and 48-bit color depth, for over 281 trillion possible colors. And thanks to its high-end image processor and USB 2.0 Hi-Speed interface,1 this powerful scanner can provide super-fast image transfers to your computer, allowing you to see previews in approximately 2 seconds. For added convenience, four easy buttons? Scan, Copy, E-Mail and PDF?automate the scanning process, so your projects can get done more quickly. Just position your original, select the use for the image, and in seconds it?s ready to go. Canon's Hyper CCD III System on the 8400F Scanner features a 3200 dpi sensor offering greater light sensitivity with smaller pixels for capturing more image detail, as compared to 2400 dpi scanners. Revive your old images. Are some of your most precious images on old slides and negatives worn and collecting dust? Canon has a simple solution: FARE (Film Automatic Retouching and Enhancement) Level 3. Its built-in retouching technology handles the most common problems found with old negatives and slides. It can remove much of the dust and scratches that may appear on your originals. It can also revive images that have faded over time. Plus, Backlight Correction Technology works to adjust image exposure, and Grain Correction will help smooth out grainy images.

[1Old Pro]

Just curious, I have an older well working hp scanner like that with a plastic holder for slides which I have never used. I suppose I should try as I have thousands of kodachrome slides. Stupid question, if i scan a sheet of slides, how does it know they are slides and break them out to individual jpg images?

[Buffalo Bob]

I used a Canon CanoScan 9000F flat bed scanner bought 8 years ago, to scan my father’s Kodachrome slides from the 1970s.

I showed these pictures to my extended family on a 65 inch smart TV and the crowd was amazed at the picture clarity, color and detail. Just breathtaking!

[fireman15]

if i scan a sheet of slides, how does it know they are slides and break them out to individual jpg images?

That would depend on the software you are using with your scanner. I unusually use photoshop and scan several at a time, then crop each image individually our of the larger scan.

[1Old Pro]

Do you do a jpg page scan? I have to start scanning my slides.

[SuperLuminal]

Wow!
Thxs... Will try out buying the slide scanner...
Have hundreds of slides from the late 60's, 70's, & early 80's stored away somewhere...

Have a 12-year-old great-grandson who is a nerd and might do it for me...
If he doesn't want to, I'll take back the Ruger 10-22 I gave him last Christmas...😏

[kvanbrunt2]

thx