Slides to JPG???

[Dave Winters]

Dumb question: How do I get my old slides onto the computer in jpg form? Is that what a slide scanner is? Can they be rented? Borrowed?
Thanks!
Dave

[www.oldsnowboards.com]

Hi Dave, I don't know of anywhere you can rent them.

You may be able to go to a full service photo shop and have them transferred.

There are quite a few fairly inexpensive scanner/copier/fax machines that have the slide feature.

http://slidescannerreviews.info/

Or http://www.firststreetonline.com/Electronics+amp+Gadgets/Photography/35mm+Slide+Scanner.axd?sc=86678

http://www.consumersearch.com/scanner-reviews/slide-scanners

[carvingchef]

i don't know where you can rent them either but if you have a lot of slides to copy you might want to invest in a flat bed scanner with film and slide adapter, check out Epson V300 or V330 or 4490 and if you need more resolution and want to spend a little more Epson V500 or V600
http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/jsp/ProductCategory.do?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=-8172
dedicated film scanners are a lot more expensive and probably not worth it unless you are a professional photographer

[philw]

I've owned a couple of dedicated slide scanners. In my experience slide scanners are fairly cheap - google around a bit. Back when I was scanning my slides my local pro dealer would happily demonstrate the various models so you could pick one which was good enough. I suppose there will be reviews on line and (crucially) samples of scanned film by now.

With a reasonable domestic slide scanner it's easy to hit the limitations of 35mm film, so I don't think you need drum scanners for general usage. The main issues are set up, noise, and the time it takes to scan. It is a fairly time consuming process to scan slides.

In my case I saved many slides which were on the brink of growing things which they should not grow. Film rots in our climate at least. Once I'd done I gave both my scanners away (I had two because I found some more slides...). Maybe there will be a second hand market if other people sell the things on.

-- Oh, you would probably want to scan to TIFF (lossless) rather than lossy jpeg.

[softbootsailer]

I have used a flat scanner.... however you can also project the slides on a white surface or rear screen them on a piece of acetate and reshoot them with
a digital camera and walla downlode them from there...

[Jack Michaud]

If you have a ton of slides to scan, it is a very long project. More tedious and time consuming than ripping your entire CD collection to mp3.

If you are going to do it yourself, I agree that for the critical photos that you really want to work on to make them look right, scan them to tiff format. Otherwise for the typical snapshot, jpeg is fine.

Personally I would get a quote for the job from a local dedicated photography shop. It will probably cost more than buying a scanner, but you have to factor in the time it will save you. (and the aggravation, if you hate computers) If you don't have one nearby, I recommend North Coast Photographic Services. http://www.northcoastphoto.com/film_developing_scans.html

[BobD]

Does an old fashioned slide duplicator lens attachment work with a digital SLR?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002Q2RR2Y/ref=asc_df_B002Q2RR2Y1693522?smid=ANWBAWAHYG3PL&tag=nextagusmp0428508-20&linkCode=asn&creative=395105&creativeASIN=B002Q2RR2Y

[Jack Michaud]

Yes it would. That's an interesting solution, but it puts you at the mercy of the white balance of the ambient light. i.e., indoor incandescent lights are horribly yellow, fluorescent lights are green, outdoor shade is blue, etc. This is easily corrected by shooting in RAW format and adjusting each image, but that's an extra step for you after the fact, on the computer. Also it adds a lens element (or several). All lenses introduce some amount of quality degradation. A flatbed scanner has no lens and provides its own calibrated light source.

[BobD]

, but it puts you at the mercy of the white balance of the ambient light. i.e., indoor incandescent lights are horribly yellow, fluorescent lights are green, outdoor shade is blue, etc.

In the old days you just went to the store and bought a 3500k lamp and some type a film. It's so complicated these days ;)

[philw]

Fluorescent lights have been around since WW2... before that, well I expect the colour temperature of candles was somewhat different from tungsten and gas lighting... But you're not going to get the best from your slides if you illuminate them with coloured light - you really want something pretty broad spectrum... not sure what old projector bulbs were.

The best one I heard of was someone trying to copy slides by projecting them on a screen (an "analog hack") and then shooting them with their camera... complete with pop-up automatic flash. Probably apocryphal.

[Donek]

I'm almost certain Mikes Camera use to digitize slides for people. They are not up in your area, but you could drop things off at a Denver or Boulder store. If you google digitize slides, there are also online services available. Obviously a flatbed scanner can do it. If you have an all in one printer, you can probably get a slide holder for it. It really comes down to how much time or money you want to spend on it. Once you're done scanning, it's unlikely that you'll use the machine again, so consider that before buying a machine.

[Gecko]

When I was on the Ship we used to punish the Airmen by making them scan the slide archives with a Nikon slide scanner that had an autofeeder. Its mind numbing work but not particularly hard once you get everything set up it just eats time. In the grand scheme of things paying someone else to do it all is usually much more economical

[*Ace*]

Dave, don't forget to post some of those pics on here if they are carving related.

Any luck so far?

[patmoore]

I bought a slide scanner. It does an okay job but the process is slow if, like me, you have a lot of slides. As you can see, you sometimes need to do so some cropping after scanning. Over the years I have close to forty Carousel trays mostly of sky diving.

I figure when I finally retire I'll scan the better ones to JPGs and then throw out all the slides. After that I'll sell the scanner on eBay.

Here's an example of scanned slide from 1975. BTW, it's a 1928 DeHavilland Rapide and was owned by Richard Bach, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

I had just done a some wingwalking and jumped from it at an air show in Avon, FL.


http://i51.tinypic.com/2wnqr7c.jpg