Slides to digital

I have about 300 slides I want to scan and store on the Mac.

I've tried two slide scanners both of which used MediaImpressions
software, and the results were disappointing.

I can get them done professionally, but at .50 pence a slide the total
cost would be £150, and I can't afford it.

My Canon scanner doesn't have a slide scanner attachment, so I'm
stymied.

Can anyone on this NG suggest a way of doing the task without spending a
fortune on it.

Peter

 

For 300? A set of extension tubes if you don't have a macro lens.
You'll also need to cobble up some kind of holder and a backlight but
that can be done with some foamcore board and a glue gun.

 

I have an Epson Perfection 4490 Photo
and was shocked at how good a quality the slide/negative scanner is.
It is honestly better the dedicated slide scanner I had been using.

The Epson can scan four slides at a time and autocrop.

It has a professional mode with extreme quality.

Not only that, the scanner was relatively inexpensive.


Though the model I have is no longer made, I am sure that whatever Epson
now makes that replaced it...will be good


The V370 looks like an equivalent unit it's 100 USD (or 60£ I think)

 

I converted all my slides (1000+) by laying the slide on a diffuse
backlight, and having my camera shoot 3 exposures of each slide.

Much, much faster than using the Epson scanner I had at the time, and
better quality.

Dave S.

 

ugh, that is not worth the hassle and the results aren't that good
anyway.

been there done that.

 

use vuescan.

<http://www.hamrick.com/>

 

Do them a few at a time when you can afford it then. The hardware and
media cost to do decent archive quality slide scans is more than £150
and then you have your time to consider.

As others have said you can get contraptions that allow slide copying
for not that much (~ £40 maybe less secondhand) and one of those will
allow you to digitise your slides pretty quickly if you have a DSLR.

I used this method once when a badly damaged unscannable slide (someone
had stubbed a cigarette out on it) that had to be digitised instantly.

 

You might want to investigate what overseas scanning agencies
(particularly in India) charge. My son recently had the whole family
negative collection scanned and put on a CD. I think it cost about $700
overall and I was glad to pay it.

Fortunately, we had most of the negatives tho' some are currently only
DSLR camera copies of the prints in the picture albums but it would have
been sad to lose the gradually fading prints and, in any case, there are
three different places where we might wish to have copies.

You can make quite a good restoration of prints if there is even a
little left of the three primary colors. I did quite a good job of
restoring my wife's graduation picture from 1956 with Photoshop Elements.

 

But would you want to ever part with your precious negatives sending
them to a distant land and uncertain standards of handling?
50p isn't an outrageous price for image scanning in the UK.

 

My son investigated the reputation of the Indian company and received
several reassuring recommendations. The results were highly
satisfactory. If the negatives had been lost it would have been possible
to do a reasonable job of copying the prints with a DSLR tho' perfection
is not absolutely necessary for family records.

 

What is the Canon scanner? Maybe you can get a slides holder for it?

I have the Epson Perfection V750, and it came with a slides holder that
scans 15 slides at a time in very high quality.

 

This one costs €19:

<http://www.scandig.com/filmscanner-accessories/canon/canon-35mm-slide-holder.html>

 

Nope, it was a professional model but my Epson had better resolution.
(4800 x 9600 dpi) What I really like about the Epson is the four at a
time capability with auto crop and individual file for each slide.

I honestly was surprised, I had used flat bed scanners before and they
were all total crap.

 

Slides are somewhat different unless you have them copied first.

 

You might find the following of interest. Posted to:
uk.comp.sys.mac
comp.sys.mac.system

I am running an iMac with a 3.33GHz Core 2 duo processor, 8 gig memory
and a CanonLide 200 scanner. All software is up to date from Apple and
Canon.

I'm having terrible problems with the scanner not working or working
intermittently.

Very often in attempting to scan using preview or Image Capture I'm told
that there is no scanner connected, even when the scanner is shown in
System Preferences.
I did manage to get the scanner working via Photoshop Elements for a
while, but that has stopped now. Elements tells me there is no scanner
present.

After a previous appeal for help on this NG I downloaded VueScan only to
be told by VueScan there was no scanner connected, even though Prefs
showed that there was.

I have in the past few months done the following:

1 Updated all software both Canon and Apple.

2 Removed all traces of Canon software from the system and rebooted and
updated Canon drivers yet again.

3 Changed the UBS lead twice

4 Appealed for help from Canon and changed all software yet again.

5 Downloaded VueScan.

The result of all of the above was either the scanner wouldn't work or
works intermittently.

I do have Windows 7 installed on a boot partition run by BootCamp. The
scanner works perfectly under W7 even to the point of working Canon's
proprietary interface which never did work on the Mac.

Unfortunately I need the scanner to work under OS as I only have the Mac
version of Elements installed and the Mac version of Family History.

I am inclined to ditch the Canon and buy an Epson 370 scanner, but I am
worried that the same thing might happen with the Epson as has happened
with the Canon, i.e intermittent operation.

Can anyone throw any further light or advise me on this.
Thanks,

Peter

 

Peter, I have been watching this thread hoping someone would give you a
practical solution. As I understand it, you have about 300 slides to be
digitized, mostly family pictures.
I had a lot more than that to convert. After trying various scanners, I
went to a local drugstore, asked them to digitize my slides at their
highest resolution. They did a reasonable job at the conversion, and
they were all converted into tiff format. While I don't recall the
price, it was significantly less than the cost of a "conversion
service," and less than the cost of a scanner. The only drawback was
that they would only put 36 images on a CD. Considering that I did not
have to spend the time, or money, it was a good deal for me.
Of course, if you feel you need the scanner anyway, then I can't help,
as I know very little about current scanners and software.

 

I took on this project a few years ago, and had more than 300 slides
to work with. I purchased a used dedicated slide scanner for the job.
I meant to sell it later, but never got around to it.

The first step is to go through the slides and determine which were
really worth scanning. Many were repeats of the same shot with only
slight differences. While we shot fewer frames in those days, we
still duplicated some shots.

This process was the best part. I assembled my family and we all
watched the slides (I still have a Kodak projector) and jointly
decided on which were the keepers. It was quite an enjoyable
experience.

I ended up with about a third of the total to scan. That was the
boring and tedious part. Over the next few months I worked on the
results in Photoshop to improve them.

 

That's probably why mine was discontinues, they came out with a better
one, believe me I am 100% sold on Epson.

 

I got mine free when someone wanted to clean up their desk and get an
all-in-one. I am sure the scanner I have is way better than the one they
are using...but the person had no need for the "slide" capabilities.


One of these days I will have to finish scanner all of my father's best
images. I kept saying I was going to wait until I'm retired...but have
now been retired for over a year and have only scanned a dozen or so.