[lotuseclat79]

My niece's husband has photos from traveling around the world years ago on slides - actually, so do I. He would like to capture them in digital form preferably without losing information.

What are the recommended ways to capture the information detail on the slides and convert the information to digital for storage on computer or CD, DVD, etc.?

-- Tom

[PopPicker]

Ooooh a can of worms

Obviously the slides will need to be scanned, the ideal way is to use a dedicated slide scanner, of course, depending on the number you have to do it may not be viable to purchase one for such a limited use. It's possible to use a flatbed scanner with a transparency lid/holder, however the results are a little ho-hum. The exception is the Epson V700 series which does an excellent job on slides/negatives that will rival a dedicated slide scanner, yet still do a brilliant job of 'normal' scanning.

As for settings... as with any scanning job you should scan for printed output...that is 6x4, 8x12 or whatever with a dpi of 300. Many people think that having the dpi set at the highest level will give the best quality...not so. A 6x4 image at 300dpi is around 5mb, a 6x4 image at 2400 dpi is HUGE and would take AGES to scan yet the nett printed 'quality' result would be the same.

The best bet is to scan the same slide several times on different settings and see what works for you or him.

PP

[erick295]

Personally I would have this done professionally. It's usually about $0.50 per slide and a good professional would have much better equipment.

[PopPicker]

I absolutely agree Erick, although the deciding factor would be ...how many and for what final use.

In my experience a high-res scan would be a lot more than 50c, the cheap otions are usually batch processed.

[Miles Right]

You may like to check out this site...

http://www.pbase.com/lowthian/digitizing_old_slides

[erick295]

Originally Posted by Miles Right

You may like to check out this site...

http://www.pbase.com/lowthian/digitizing_old_slides

That is definitely a good way to do it, but it does require a good camera and a proper light source, which will easily set you back $1500-2000 if you don't already have the equipment... and since a good dedicated slide scanner costs about the same, there would be no reason to invest in it. One thing I can guarantee is that you will not get decent results from a flatbed with a slide attachment from Best Buy. Real slide scanners cost $1000 or more. I know there is a certain amount of pride in turning this into a do-it-yourself project but it is really something that is best left up to professionals who have the appropriate equipment. Find a good service and you will be glad you did.

The only way I would ever recommend someone doing this at home is if they already had a scanner sitting around and they absolutely could not spend the money on a service. If you are willing to invest any money in this at all then just have it done by someone.