If you have boxes of slides stacked on closet shelves in your home, you’re not alone. Preserving photographs on slides was very popular at one time. With a slide projector and a screen or blank wall, you were all set to entertain family and friends for hours with pictures of your latest family excursions or events. Over time, your collection of slides grew, and you may have inherited even more slides from other family members. If you know where your slide projector is, there is a good chance that it’s broken or that you just can’t find the time to bring it out and set up the slide carousel for an hour or two of reminiscing. If you don’t want to lose the treasured memories contained in your slides but find keeping your slides and projector a nuisance, consider scanning your slides. Here are some of the reasons you might find this to be the perfect solution for you.

Scanning slides is easy. You can buy your own slide scanner and complete this project in your spare time. Others in your family can help, too, which will make the scanning process more fun and less time consuming. Slide scanners are available in stores and online in a wide range of prices.

You can easily carry your photographs with you. When you scan your slides, they can be transferred to CD’s or DVD’s. You’ll be able to carry hundreds of pictures on a few thin, lightweight disks. If you want to take them to view somewhere else, it won’t be a problem.

You can keep your pictures organized any way you like. Your slides might be grouped together according to the year they were taken, the locations, the people in the photographs, or some other categorization. If you own a large collection of slides, you know how easy it is to misplace a slide or drop a box of them, leading to a jumbled mess. When you scan your slides, you can choose which photographs go on each CD or DVD. You can label the disks, making it easy for you to locate favorite shots.

You can improve the quality of your photographs. Slides tend to collect dust and other particles, and they can be accidently scratched. The color on slides will fade over time. Scanning slides enables you to enhance the quality of the photograph by adding color to the photographs and covering up any scratches or other marks on the slides. You can also crop the photographs to focus more on the subjects in the pictures and exclude unnecessary background areas.

There are several ways to scan slides to turn them into digital photos. Many people remember the small square cardboard cut-outs containing negatives that would be popped into a tray at family gatherings, and with some light and a projector screen (or blank wall) people could reminisce over photos that were larger than life. Today, slide screens have given way to large screen televisions and computer screens. The slide has been rendered all but obsolete, but how do people save the pictures on the slides and keep them viewable? The answer is simple-scan them. These are some of the different ways to turn slides into great, state-of-the-art digital pictures.

Scanning Slides: The Scanner

One of the easiest ways to scan slides is to use a scanner with a special attachment. The attachment is like a mirror box, which diverts light around to the back of the slide so that the scanner picks up transmitted light instead of reflected light. However, this method does not produce the best results; scanned pictures can look soft, unrefined, too dark, and often appear with white spots all over them, which is actually just dust that is being lit up. Some scanner models have special transparency adapters that can be bought to scan images from negatives and slides. These can be very pricy, though, averaging about $1800.00 for a decent one.

Many people claim that the image results using the adapter are no better than the scanner that uses the mirror box attachment. One advantage of the transparency adapter, however, is that an entire large image can be scanned all at once, making it easier to restore old photos than it would be to piece several scans together and then start the restoring process.

Scanning Slides: The Digital Camera

It makes sense to use a camera to get a picture of a picture. However, although this can be a simple way to get results, it often proves to turn out some pretty disappointing photos. Missing hues, colors, highlights, effects, and downright blurry, fuzzy images are very common. Devices exist that can link your camera and a slide projector so that when a projector changes display images, the camera is set up to snap a picture of it. These can be frustrating, and the obvious downfall is that you must have a working slide projector to use the method. Other devices are on the market that attach right to the camera and hold a slide to it; however, you can only insert and deal with one slide at a time, and the devices are usually specific to a certain make and model of camera.

Years ago, 35mm film cameras were the “latest and greatest,” and many people archived their favorite photographs on 35mm slides. This may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but viewing and storing these slides usually turned out to be more effort than expected. The problem many people ended up with was having hundreds, and possibly thousands, of slides and a broken slide projector. Even with a working projector, setting up a slide projector for a slide show can take a lot of time.

With today’s digital image technology, you can scan 35mm slides and conveniently store them on CD’s and DVD’s. There’s no slide projector to drag out of the closet and no slide carousels to fill with slides. Once you scan your 35mm slides and transfer the images to a CD or DVD, all you need is a computer or DVD player to view your pictures.

When you decide to scan 35mm slides, your first step should be determining which slides you want to preserve. Pick out the best shots to scan. It may be tempting to scan every slide you own, but this will probably result in your spending more time and money on the project than you intended. Eliminating near-duplicate slides and slides you don’t need to keep in your collection will save you time and money later on.

If you have a large number of slides to scan, you’ll want a dependable slide scanner. A high quality scanner can run in the thousands of dollars. There are some less expensive models, but remember that “you get what you pay for.” Lower end scanners only allow you to view the scanned images. You will not be able to make prints with these scanners. There are professional photography services that scan 35mm slides, and this may be your best option. Their work is guaranteed, and you won’t need to worry about what you’re going to do with an expensive slide scanner once your project is completed. Professional 35mm scanning services are able to remove dust, scratches, and other blemishes from the slides, giving you enhanced images.

Make sure your scanner’s software is user-friendly and can handle what you want it to do. Good scanner software will allow you to make color adjustments to your images before you scan your 35mm slides. A common customer complaint is that the scanner software is difficult to set up and even more difficult to use. If you’re unable to use the scanner software, you can use Adobe Photoshop, but your images will not be as clear.

Prior to the advent of the digital camera, most amateur and semi-professional photographers shot pictures on 35mm film. Anyone who spent much time behind a camera had binders full of 35mm negatives, carefully preserved in archival sheeting. Those negatives, when preserved properly, last quite a while, but no matter how careful you are with them, they will eventually begin to deteriorate. Dust, scratches, and fading make them practically useless for reprints. Today, there is an alternative to storing your negatives in this way. By taking advantage of 35mm scanning services, you can create a high quality digital image from your negatives that will not fade or get scratched.

Why Scan Negatives?

Even if you have a paper print of your image, the negative is the best option to scan if it is available. This is because it is a “first generation” image, and, even though it is much smaller than the print, a negative has more detail and contrast than a print. This means you will get the highest quality digital image if you use the negative over the print.

Choosing a Service

If you are interested in having your negatives scanned, the first step is to choose the right 35mm scanning service. First, look for a company that offers a variety of resolutions. Negatives are scanned in a resolution measured as “dots per inch,” or dpi. The dpi you need varies depending on the intended use of the image. A 35mm negative scanned at 1500 dpi is a good choice if you wish to archive your images, view them on a screen, or print up to a 5 x 7 picture. In contrast, a scan of 4000 dpi gives you the ability to zoom in on a particular area of your picture and make prints up to a 13 x 19.

Besides choosing a 35mm scanning service with several dpi options, choose one that uses a quality negative-specific scanner. You do not want to pay someone to scan negatives on a device you could buy and use at home. High-end professional scanners deliver quality images that make excellent prints.

Touch Up Services

Another option to look for when choosing a scanning service is photo enhancement service. Choose a company that has the ability to remove scratches, fix fading, or reduce red eye in your finished image. This will allow you to archive your oldest negatives, even if they have been damaged with time. Keep in mind that a poorly shot image will still look poorly shot, even with touch up services.

Kodak has developed a technology known ad Digital ICE that allows the imaging professional to isolate images of dirt and scratches on an image. The area is then filled in using information scanned from the color in the surrounding are of the image. Kodak also offers Digital GEM, a program that allows the imaging professional to remove film grain and the effects of poor lighting from a finished image. Programs like Digital ICE, Digital GEM, or something similar are one feature you want to look for when choosing a 35mm scanning service. This is especially true if you are working with older negatives that have faded with time.

The next time you move your old box of negatives from one shelf in the closet to another, ask yourself if there is a better way. The answer is yes, because you can store your negatives in a much more compact digital format by choosing 35mm scanning services.

Those 35mm slides that you’ve been holding on to can now be digitally formatted with 35mm slide scanning. Most 35mm slides are in boxes stacked on shelves and closet floors. The owners don’t want to part with the slides, even though they haven’t brought them out to view in years. The slides hold memories and, in the case of businesses, important information. Improved techniques for 35mm slide scanning can help you preserve your photographs and illustrations on PC’s and DVD’s. You’ll be able to view them easily on any PC or television.

One of the best features of 35mm slide scanning is that now you’ll be able to print the slide images, email the images to friends or business associates, and include the images on digital videos or digital slide shows. Once your 35mm slides are converted to a digital format, you can download the images to your computer and organize, adjust, and transfer the images for any purpose. 35mm slide scanning allows you to quickly access your photographs, charts, and graphics for viewing or reference.

You can do your own 35mm slide scanning at your home or business. If you need certain slides to be scanned together, sort through the slides first and put them into groups. Some business presentations require slides to be scanned in a prescribed order. Keep in mind that you might have to work with different slide orientations (portrait or landscape), slide mount thickness, and film types when you group slides, and this could slow down your scanning process. While you are sorting through your slides, get rid of slides that you no longer need, are duplicates, or were never a good image to begin with. You don’t need to continue to keep slides that are of no value to you.

For good 35mm slide scanning, the slides need to be as clean as possible. Keeping slides clean is a never-ending process because they are dust magnets. It is also easy to scratch 35mm slides, and this can be a problem when you scan them. If your slides have a minimal amount of dust and scratches on them, your scanner may be able to take care of this. Many scanners have an infrared light used during 35mm slide scanning that passes through the film, but not the debris on the slide. The scanner software captures the dust and scratches and compensates for these by filling in the blank areas with colors that match the surrounding image. Fingerprints and oily films should be removed by a professional 35mm slide scanning service.

About thirty-five to forty years ago, 35mm slides were quite popular. Families documented their vacations and special occasions with series of slides, businesses used slide shows for important presentations, and students learned about faraway places and science from slide shows. Each slide was placed, in order and in the correct orientation, into the slide carousel, and the show began.

Image technology has come a long way since the 60’s and 70’s. PowerPoint presentations, digital cameras, and photographs on CD’s and DVD’s are used for displaying pictures and presentations. Many people have boxes and cases full of old 35mm slides that sit gathering dust because viewing the slides is too cumbersome or the slide projector is broken. Fortunately, slides can now be converted to a digital format onto CD’s and DVD’s for easy storage and viewing with slide scanning.

You can use a flatbed scanner or a film scanner to scan your slides. Film scanners can range in price from $300 to over $1,000, but they produce a higher quality reproduction. Some of the scanner features you need to consider before making a purchase are resolution, DPI, PPI, dynamic range, and bit depth.

The resolution of a scanned image is the measurement of how sharp, or clear, the scanned image is. The DPI, or dots per inch, is the measurement of the number of image dots a printer is capable of printing into 2.54cm (one linear inch) of space. A higher DPI typically results in a higher resolution. Pixel, a combination of the words “picture” and “element,” is a term that refers to the smallest unit of an image. This is typically a color dot. The number of pixels a scanner supports (megapixels) and the size of the image produced determine the PPI, or pixels per inch. As the size of an image increases, the PPI decreases. Scanners with higher megapixels produce images with higher resolution. Dynamic range refers to the capability of distinguishing levels of brightness in an image. A low dynamic range results in a blurry, undefined image, and a high dynamic range produces a sharp, crisp image. Bit depth, or color depth, is the measurement of how many bits, or single units of information, are used to create each pixel in a digital image. Higher bit depths result in brighter and deeper image colors.

There are some drawbacks to do-it-yourself slide scanning. As mentioned previously, the cost of a quality scanner may be prohibitive. You may also end up with a scanner that is difficult to operate or does not perform as you expected. Common problems of scanning slides at home or at your business are damage from fingerprints, choosing the appropriate settings on the scanner, and difficulty producing pictures without scratches and other unsightly marks. Slide scanning used to be a very time-consuming process but with the latest models it is a breeze!

One of the questions that I am quite often asked is the following:

Which is better to scan, film negatives or prints?

It is always best to scan the original negatives, provided that they are in good shape and the colors have not faded. The reasons for this are explained below.

To begin with, you have to realize that a photograph is merely a copy of the original, processed negative. In most cases, a copy is never as good as the original. Typically, photographs are printed out at 240-300 dpi when done at your local photo lab. That means that a 4×6 print is, at most, 1200×1800 dpi. This is why prints are typically scanned at 300 dpi as scanning at a higher resolution does not bring out any further detail other than what is on the original print. The only time that scanning a photograph at 600 dpi, or greater, would be if the original was either very small or if it is going to be edited at a later date.

The size of a typical 35mm negative is 24mm x 36mm or, roughly, 1.0in x 1.5in. This means that the film was essentially scanned at 1200 dpi in order to produce the 4×6 print in the above example.

Most 35mm film negatives are capable of being scanned at up to 4000 dpi. This is especially true for the slower speed films (100, 200). When scanning negatives the general rule of thumb is the higher the resolution, the greater the detail.

For example, a negative scanned at a lower resolution of 2000 dpi may not be able to clearly display the time on a clock in the background or the fine print on a paper or sign when the photograph is blown up. By simply rescanning the same image at 4000 dpi you are providing 4x the resolution of the original scan. This type of resolution can display these details much more easily and clearly, especially when a larger print is be made.

Another reason for choosing to scan the film negatives instead of the photographic print is that the original film contains much more contrast and detail as compared to a photographic print. This is because prints tend to fade over time due to exposure to sunlight, etc. Negatives, if they have been stored in a dry place, are much more immune to this behavior.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments.

Negative scanning is a term that is used to refer to the scanning of both photo negatives, most typically those on 35mm film, and also, of film slides. Scanning negatives or film produces a more quality print at a higher resolution, since scanning a print would produce a lower quality, second generation copy of the image.

Think of the difference in quality between the music on a CD purchased at a store and the music on a tape made from that same CD, and it is easy to see why scanning negatives and film slides is the preferred method of the professionals when it comes to obtaining prints from these mediums.

Make sure to always organize your negatives by group, and use your scanner’s batch mode to scan each negative by category both before and after scanning. You can still name each scan individually if you want to, but the batch scan feature eliminates the absolute necessity of this step.

You should also take care to make sure to use a scanner with Kodak’s Digital ICE photo restoring software. You can also use a special film cleaner and compressed air for especially stubborn particulate matter.

Before you start scanning, you should adjust your settings to 3000 DPI. In terms of file formats, we recommend that professional photographers use the TIFF format, and that novices use JPEG, due to the large file sizes of the TIFF format.

You should also compare the difference in negative resolution with Kodak ICE and without, and never, ever, crop your negatives until you have scanned the entire image in.

What Are Some of The Benefits Of Negative Scanning?

First of all, whether we want to admit it or not, most of us have at least one or two dusty boxes sitting in our garage, attic, or basement full of old negatives and slides, and unorganized photos. In short, a treasure trove of memories that no one will ever see. This is where the pros at photo restoration comes into play.

Negative scanning on your own can be tricky, but a professional will have the experience and technical know how necessary to make sure that your precious memories are handled with care. Do not let your family history molder in a cardboard box. Instead, you can preserve it safely, inexpensively, and using the highest caliber equipment and restoration methods at a slide scanning company.