[slider]

I am wondering about how one goes about taking hundreds of 35mm slides and converting them into a digital format. I see there are dedicated slide scanners, but we're talking about $500 and up. I also see that there are $80 flatbed scanners with slide adaptors, but it looks like I would only be able to do a couple at a time.

Does anyone offer a good flatbed scanner which can be loaded up with slides at one time and goes for under $200? Is there another device which does this?

I really have no idea about this kind of stuff. During my searching I found there are services that do this kind of work for you. Has anyone tried one of these? Quality, price?

And yes, I did a search for "slide".

[X-Ray]

Yes. I have an Epson 3170. It will scan 4 slides at a time. With some touch up in Photoshop Elements 2 (included with the scanner) for contrast and sharpness slides come out good enough to produce decent prints. Price? $199 with a $25 dollar rebate.

[nbnz]

I think a dedicated slide/negative scanner is the best bet, for quality and speed. It will scan multiple slides without user intervention.
If you can't afford to buy one, talk to you local photographic store who would either hire one or a lot of places offer a scanning service.
Personally I think scanning them on a flatbed would be a very tedious process with inferior results.

You might find some useful info on this Nikonians Forum

[tooki]

No flatbed scanner will capture the resolution that a dedicated slide scanner will. Really, you just need to bite the bullet and buy one. Either that, or pay to have them scanned.

tooki

[CambAngst]

Does anyone know of a good commercial service for converting old rolls of 35 MM film to digital images? I have a bunch of old Advanced Photo System rolls. I tried a bunch of different places that do photo-developing and it was pretty much the same story everywhere: "We will make you a PhotoCD if you pay for prints, but we won't just make you a CD." Which seems kind of idiotic, since the CD probably costs nearly nothing to make. The only services I found on the Internet were a couple of "eMom-n-Pop" outfits that took weeks and charged a fortune.

[X-Ray]

Here are a few samples of some scans from slides on the Epson 3170. Click on the thumbnails to get a larger view (the thumbnails look softer than they should). All transparencies were scanned at 3200dpi then resized in Photoshop to 4x6 at 300dpi. Let me know what you think of the scans for shadow, detail, color and sharpness. http://homepage.mac.com/rayhill2/PhotoAlbum2.html

[tooki]

They look fine, for a flatbed scanner. But no flatbed can compare (on 35mm film) to the 2700-4000ppi and specialized original holders of a dedicated slide scanner.

tooki

[tooki]

Note that in flatbed scanners, the optical resolution specs are usually highly exaggerated. For example, the lenses in a typical 1200x2400ppi scanner might only be able to actually resolve 900dpi. Scanning at any higher resolution than that is just capturing more pixels of the blurriness.

Slide scanners, being rather specialized beasts, tend to fare better.

tooki

[starman]

Is there a dedicated unit that will take a carosel? We have at least 20 carosels of slides, and I'd rather leave them alone than take them out, make sure they're in the right orientation, etc.

Mike

[Camera God]

Originally posted by starman:
Is there a dedicated unit that will take a carosel? We have at least 20 carosels of slides, and I'd rather leave them alone than take them out, make sure they're in the right orientation, etc.

Mike

None of the good ones do that. There are stack loaders for some of the higher end scanners, but those are pretty expensive. Do yourself a favor and get the best: Nikon.

[slider]

Originally posted by starman:
Is there a dedicated unit that will take a carosel? We have at least 20 carosels of slides, and I'd rather leave them alone than take them out, make sure they're in the right orientation, etc.

Mike

I found this, but of the limited reviews I have read, it really doesn't take carousals, but it does take straight ones. I found it for under $600 and it has firewire and supposedly it has mac support. Plus there is some third party software, Lasersoft Imaging, and they support this scanner; $300, on top of the scanner. The software is for photo corrections, I think.

Going to look at Nikon. The thing of it is, that once we convert all of our slides over, we'll never use it again. Going..........

[slider]

OK, current Nikon models are around $1000 to $2000 and they sell an auto loader for something like $500, way way out of my league. Even the older discontinued models are $700, plus, get this, $600 for the 50 slide autoloader. I think this was the coolscan 4000. I have no doubt that these are among the best, but I am not starting a service, I am just trying to get some of our family slides onto digital media.

Well, enough for today. I am surprised, I would have thought there would be more of a market for this to drive prices down.

[X-Ray]

starman, here you go: http://www.scanace.com/en/product/ps3600.php
The unit is $659 at B&H Electronics

[slider]

Originally posted by X-Ray:
starman, here you go: http://www.scanace.com/en/product/ps3600.php
The unit is $659 at B&H Electronics

Err, that is the link to the one I forgot to put into my earlier post. Can anyone find some positive review on this model.

Thanks all.

[zigzag]

Transparencies contain a lot more information than prints. Plus, unlike prints, you have to enlarge them. Therefore, if you want the best quality, you want to scan them with as much resolution as you can, with the best optics.

Flat-beds will do, but they're not as precise - you want the slide to be at just the right distance from the scanning element to get it in proper focus, and you want good, consistent backlighting. That's why pros use dedicated film scanners, which also tend to have higher resolutions, better optics, and better software.

BUT - and this is a big but - if you're only going to look at the images on a computer screen, which is only 72-96 ppi, you don't need as much resolution. You only really need maximum resolution for prints and enlargements. So you need to decide what your highest use will be. If you're only scanning for screen displays, a 1200 dpi flatbed would probably be fine. Scanning a slide at 1200 dpi would allow you to enlarge it over 12x on a 96 ppi monitor with no loss of resolution (although the original scan might not be as precise as it would be with a film scanner).

One strategy is to buy a film scanner, do your scans, then eBay the scanner. It might end up costing you a couple of hundred bucks (or none if you find a good used one), but your slides might be worth it.

[york28]

I have heard a lot of good things about the Minolta Dual Scan IV - it retails for around $300, and while it is not exactly drum scanner quality, it wil blow a flat bed out of the water.

[Tenacious Dyl]

Here: Save yourself some money on a GOOD 35 mm negative film scanner (which is worth it if you DO have the money... normal scanners suck for film compartively).

1) Get in your car, and drive to a photodeveloper

2) Give them your film / negatives / whatever

3) Request that it be put onto a "picture cd"

4) Pick them up a day later.

I did this locally, it cost me I believe 11 dollars a roll. Expensive yes, but for say, 10 rolls of film... 110 dollars is better than me buying a 1000 dollar film scanner I will rarely use. Also, they are already backed up for me on cds

[slider]

Originally posted by york28:
I have heard a lot of good things about the Minolta Dual Scan IV - it retails for around $300, and while it is not exactly drum scanner quality, it wil blow a flat bed out of the water.

And that is the scanner I have purchased. Clearly not the best, and it does not take a carousal, but the reviews are great, and I even read that some compare it to Nikons 7-8 hundred dollar machines. It does not have ICE technology, but I think we'll be fine, the slides have been kept in pretty good condition. I was so tempted to go with the minolta elite 5400, which also had the ICE tech, firewire, 5400x5400dpi, I just couldn't do it at over twice the price. This unit, btw, has 3200x3200 dpi. It also did not occur to my, but it's not just the slides we have, but there is film that I could get digitized too. The machine will remain busy to be sure. The slides and film will be put away for backup.

The software that comes with it sounds to be pretty straight forward.

I'll post back with my impressions after I have had an opportunity to work with it a bit. For the record, neither myself nor my family are photographers or photo professionals, I think this machine was intended for our level.

[memento]

So how is it? I'm particularly interested in the lack of ICE and also how is the negative conversion done? The dual scan IV one is supposed to do it automatically I think.

[Cadaver]

Slider, I'll have to echo many of the posts here -
If you think you'll be scanning large numbers of slides in the future, bite the bullet and buy a Nikon slide scanner. In the end, it will pay off.
If you're doing a one-time bulk scan, pay a service to do it for you. May cost a couple hundred, but its cheaper than buying a slide scanner.
If you need these slides scanned in at high-resolution or with the best color/sharpness, do not bother with a flat-bed scanner at all. While they may look OK on a 17" screen at 96dpi, you'll be able to see artifacts if you print them on high-quality equipment. No doubt about that. Plus, you'll pick up dust & grain with a flat-bed that a high-quality dedicated slide scanner will compensate for. There's a reason they cost $900+...

[Rev-O]

Originally posted by tooki:
No flatbed scanner will capture the resolution that a dedicated slide scanner will. Really, you just need to bite the bullet and buy one. Either that, or pay to have them scanned.

tooki

Agreed. My flatbed Hp has a 'slide' adapter, and it boarders on adequate. It's nothing great. I've got a flippin' boatload of slides to scan, so I've been occasionally toying with picking up a dedicated slide scanner. Suggestions on dedicated units?

[Back up 15 and punt]

Canon also makes a decent flatbed that has a stated optical resolution of 3200 by 6400 and can scan 12 slides or 24 negatives at a time. The scanner is the 9900f. Unfortunately, this scanner is about 400 to 500 dollars and if you are going to spend that much you should spend a little extra and biy the dedicated slide scanner.

[zigzag]

I've recently been involved in a slide scanning project and have learned a pantload about the subject. I would reiterate my previous comments that a dedicated slide scanner is preferable. I would also concur with Tooki that most flatbeds exaggerate their true resolution - they might be able to process 3200 dpi but the optics can only capture, say, 800 dpi.

Anyway, I scanned some slides on a Microtek 9800XL/DMA1600, which is a very expensive ($1000+) flatbed. It's only rated at 1600 dpi but its optics will capture more of that than most flatbeds with higher ratings. The results were OK, but not great. I then borrowed a Nikon 4000 slide scanner and the difference in detail and dynamic range was easy to see, and I didn't even use its highest resolution.

I also had a chance to try Digital ICE on the Nikon. It really works. My slides have a lot of crud on them so it will save a lot of time in Photoshop. Note, however, that ICE doesn't work as well on Kodachrome, and doesn't work at all on B&W transparencies.

That said, I've read some very favorable reviews of the Epson 4870 flatbed, which has Digital ICE and is available for $400+. According to this very detailed review: http://www.photo-i.co.uk/ it can perform as well as a slide scanner for all but the most critical work. It seems to have become the preferred choice for people who only want to invest in one multi-purpose scanner.

But slide scanners are more fun to use. They just have that precise feel about them.