Digitizing old slides (transparancies)

I have an EPSON RX500 All in One printer/scanner. It scans 35mm slides and has a gizmo called a "transparency holder" as part of it to hold the slides. Mine is NOT sold anymore, but newer Epson (and probably HP) scanners and all-in-one printers/scanners may have the same capability. These are NOT expensive printer/scanners. I think I paid $65 for mine....which is the same as the cost for one full set of ink cartridges.

I'd advise you to do some research on the HP and EPSON sites and see what they offer that scans slides.  Normally, if they scan slides, they'll scan negatives too.  These things do a pretty good job. Some have high enough resolution to print large photos from scans of slides. They all come with photo software that will clean up the scan too.

One last piece of advice....make sure it has drivers that work with your computer's operating system. I've LOST my scanning ability on my RX500 with my MS Vista machine. Epson's revised drivers....or Vista...do NOT work for scanning to the computer. I have to scan to an SD card...then put the SD card in my computer to get the scans....thank you very much Microsoft and Epson.

Tom
I too have many many RR photos on slides from my 35mm days. I found that many were starting to fade / discolor etc and also to some of my family slides etc that you want to keep for memories.  

I checked out local camera stores etc and their costs were pricey and as was previously stated the results are often so-so.  Anyway, I decided to do my own and purchased a slide scanner a couple of years ago and have been transfer them to a digital format and now have them stored on my HD and backed up on CD's.  Once on CD's you can display on your PC or on your TV.

I needed a scanner anyway for regular home/office work and for the price difference I bought a mutipurpose flatbed and it takes four 35mm slides (in the cardboard mounts) at a time; or 35mm film strip; or negative film strips in different formats.  You can also get them for 8 or more at a time but the 4 serves my purposes.

The scanner came with some software that automatically helps adjust the color etc.   I use Photoshop to touch them up further when required.  It's not a quick process by any means, but the results are worth it. 
One note.... I scan mine at a very high quality and they therefore take up a lot of HD space!
 
There are several very good film scanners out there made by the likes of Canon; HP; Epson etc and they are making constant improvements on the speed and quality.  Shop around first.

Regards
Gary

You need a camera shop that specifically scans slides as a service..
scans of slides require special processing (software thats does specific color and density corrections) to get the color balance right..
most people dont know this, but all slides are actually very dark and very blue.
they need to be this way to appear "normal" when projected on a screen in a dark room.
if you scan the slide as it actually appears, with no specific corrections, you end up with a very dark and very blue result!
you dont WANT an accurate scan of the slide!
you need some specific post-processing specifically meant to balance digital scans from slides.

most average labs, like CVS or Walmart, dont have the equipment or knowledge to scan slides correctly.
there is such a small market for it, they dont bother.
you need a good old fashioned "camera shop" (if you can still find one!) that has its own lab and does its own work in-house.
that kind of lab would have the scanners and software to correct the scans properly.

but I'm not sure if they'd be able to transfer the slides directly or if they'd need the negatives (which I doubt I have any longer)?


you never had any negatives to begin with! 
when you shoot "color print" film, and get prints, the actual piece of film that was in the film casette ends up being the negative.
then prints are printed from the negatives.

but with slide film, the actual slide itself IS the actual piece of film that went through the camera!
there never was a negative.
the slide IS the film that was in the cassette.
its a different film, and a different development process, that gives you a positive piece of film instead of a negative piece of film.

Scot

Tom,

I bought a dedicated slide / negative scanner a couple of years ago for under $400. The scan quality is very good but it is hopelessly slow (3-4 minutes per slide). Then last summer, I bought a new flatbed scanner for my father (CanoScan CS8600F). 

http://www.amazon.com/Canon-1307B002-CanoScan-CS8600F/dp/B000HDQ2FW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1202562101&sr=8-3

I didn't realize it when I ordered it,  but it is also capable of scanning 5 slides at a time in a tray, or a negative strip. He has since scanned hundreds of slides at decent quality and quite rapidly (a minute or so for a tray of five). I think many of the newest generation of flatbed scanners have this same capability. This one was $160.

There is a scanning technology called ICE (I forget what it stands for) that removes marks and scratches automatically. This is essential for older slides. The difference in a scan with and without ICE switched on is astounding. Be sure the scanner includes this feature.

Good luck.

Steve H.

Tom, its a big job, if you want transfer all that you have over. Transparency scanning is tricky business, to get a digital file that retains any of the image quality of the original, and its a very slow process, even for scanners that have cassettes (I have about $6K invested in film scanners). Questions of desired resolution, ultimate end use determine how the scanning is done. ICE is useful, but is resource intensive - you need lots of cpu and memory horsepower for ICE. Epson and Canon both make decent consumer level scanners that will handle transparencies, at not too bad a price (yeah, I know, thats relative). Re-photographing is difficult - it requires a very high quality, color corrected light source. Contrary to an opinion above, projecting and rephotographing may be quite feasible for a few shots. Use a projector with a good lens (sharp corner to corner), keep the image small (about 12x15), and project on a high quality piece of matt photo paper - you are looking for a paper that is heavily coated, with little to no observable texture. Mount the camera on a tripod. Unfortunately, this technique s tricky with most consumer cameras now - they keep leaving off the good stuff like remote release (I still don't get why they won't include the threaded button for a simple cable release).
The work begins when you get a usable scan - color profiles for scanning transparencies are troublesome, and if the slide has a color shift, you are looking at a fair bit of post processing in P'shop or other. In short, a usable copy is not difficult to get - a good copy is. Send out a one or two to different places in your area and see what you get back - let that be your guide as to how deep you want to get into it.

Carl, thanks for the info on that HP Photosmart 3180 all-in-one printer-scanner-copier.  I currently have an older HP PSC-500 all-in-one, purchased originally for use with my last computer (a 600 MHz. PIII running at first Windows 98 2nd edition, later Windows 2000); my current desktop PC runs a dual-core AMD Athlon 4400 CPU running Windows XP Pro 64-bit edition; I've been unable to use my old PSC-500 as a scanner with it./DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/crying.gif  Although the PSC-500 is starting to get a bit "tired" (occaisionally gets cranky /DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/blink.gif with the paper feed), the copier function (which will work with the PC turned off) works fine, so I know the scanner "hardware" is OK; the problem is that it's an old enough model that HP never came out with 64-bit drivers for it./DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/ermm.gif I'm more concerned with copying the slides to a file, both for archival preservation, & posting them here /DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/blush.gif & on other railroad-related boards, than I am with physically printing them out.  Thanks again!

Tom

Posted By Tom Lapointe on 02/13/2008 5:17 PM
Carl, thanks for the info on that HP Photosmart 3180 all-in-one printer-scanner-copier.  I currently have an older HP PSC-500 all-in-one, purchased originally for use with my last computer (a 600 MHz. PIII running at first Windows 98 2nd edition, later Windows 2000); my current desktop PC runs a dual-core AMD Athlon 4400 CPU running Windows XP Pro 64-bit edition; I've been unable to use my old PSC-500 as a scanner with it./DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/crying.gif  Although the PSC-500 is starting to get a bit "tired" (occaisionally gets cranky /DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/blink.gif with the paper feed), the copier function (which will work with the PC turned off) works fine, so I know the scanner "hardware" is OK; the problem is that it's an old enough model that HP never came out with 64-bit drivers for it./DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/ermm.gif I'm more concerned with copying the slides to a file, both for archival preservation, & posting them here /DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/blush.gif & on other railroad-related boards, than I am with physically printing them out.  Thanks again!

Tom



Tom,

A suggestion for bypassing the HP drivers.  Microsoft has Twain support built-in to Office, through the "MS Office Scanning" utility.  I found it on my Office menu [All Programs/Microsoft Office/Microsoft Office Tools.]  The utility will handle my old Visioneer scanner, whose software doesn't work on my current XP machine. I thought I'd have to buy a new scanner, but it works fine.  If your PSC-500 is Twain compatible, then it should work fine.