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digitising slides

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Target:
anyone here have any experience with converting slides and negatives to digital images?

We've been tasked to do this for some relatives, and I'm not sure how best to approach this.  I don't have a lot of funds to spend, and given that this is a pretty finite task I'm reluctant to spend too much anyway

FWIW I really have no need for another scanner (I already have 2 multifunction printers), but the cheaper options (something like this) aren't exactly inspiring me to confidence

4wd:
 Does this count?.

You Umart link just takes you to the main page but I assume you mean something like this.

I used one of the cheap slide flash scanners that you can get for about $50 these days, (even though I have a Canon flatbed scanner that will do slides/negatives - the flash scanner is a lot faster).

A lot depends on the original condition of the slides, in my case they were 25-30 years old and most had some mould/specks/dust/etc.

What kind of archival are they looking for?
BTN, (Better Than Nothing), or the best they can get?

If you don't mind a bit of DIY and you have a digital camera, I've got a Silicon Chip article I can send you.

Target:
Does this count?.
-4wd (June 04, 2013, 07:05 PM)
--- End quote ---

I'd forgotten about that, thanks!

it's worth reading for the subsequent sorting & cleanup  :Thmbsup:

I used one of the cheap slide flash scanners that you can get for about $50 these days.
--- End quote ---

I was kind of leaning that way, simply because it's likely to be a 'throwaway item' at the end of the process (though how long that might take is open to conjecture).

I'd be interested to know where you've seen them for $50 though.  Best I can find locally is Target at about $75, though that appears to be unbranded.  Regardless of price or PoS they all seem to spec out the same...

Anyone else got any experience with these things?  I googled but didn't come up with much

A lot depends on the original condition of the slides, in my case they were 25-30 years old and most had some mould/specks/dust/etc.

What kind of archival are they looking for?
BTN, (Better Than Nothing), or the best they can get?
--- End quote ---

I can't comment on their condition.  Like your's, I suspect these will be 25-50 years old, and it's unlikely that they've been stored under perfect conditions.

As to results, based on the audience and the age of the slides, I'd say option 2 quality wise, though clearly we want aim for the best we can get

quote]If you don't mind a bit of DIY and you have a digital camera, I've got a Silicon Chip article I can send you.[/quote]

I'm always up for a project so please send :Thmbsup: :Thmbsup:

4wd:
Article attached.  Regarding their light source, I'd probably try it with a couple of cheap LED torches and see how that turns out.

$50 flash scanner - they all have the same specs at that price, (ebay is flooded with them).

Using the scanner, images turn out a little darker than the original, (to be expected for a low quality device), but for my purposes I think they turned out rather well - a lot of the slides had started to lose contrast anyway so this was a save them before they die exercise.

From memory, after scanning images stayed as TIFF until final stage:
a) Batch run through XnView with Auto-Level to a different folder then checked through to see which ones benefited.
b) The ones that didn't, the original was run through XnView with Auto-Contrast, if that didn't make any difference then a bit of hand tweaking in Gimp, Sagelight (Payware) or Lightbox (free cutdown Sagelight).
c) After that, it was the time consuming PolaDSR, where they were saved as JPG @ 95%.

That's it.

If you can set aside the time, as I said in my original thread, it only took 2-3 days to do 1800 slides, (dead time between Xmas and New Years).  The real time spent comes in cleaning them up afterwards.

Target:
thanks for that - I'd already seen some similar articles.  I actually did a few experiments with a couple of different light sources and a handheld camera - the results were significantly better than with our scanners, but you can't do this with a hand held camera and expect anything like good results :-[

Only trouble with this solution is that neither of our camera's have a facility trip the shutter remotely, so focusing and shooting is hands on process :o

FWIW the 'scanner' I'd been looking at was like this one.  Reviews for these (where they're available) are so mixed as to be worthless

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