scanning slides

[Vallie]

I have boxes and boxes of slides some are 30 years old, ektachrome and kodachrome. I have a Hp 3770 scanner with slide mount. I cant find my instruction book for the scanner. I did try scanning some slides a year ago but they didnt look very good. What is the best dpi to use so they can print decently or can be used in layouts? Also, while the slides are in boxes, they are incredibly dusty and spotty so the scans are full of stuff to clean off. Is there something to clean the slides with before scanning to get rid of dust and what looks like mildew on some? The colours dont look so great either. I guess they will all have to be photoshopped to make them look any good. A big, tedious job!!!!!!!! My projector is broken long ago and that makes it hard to view them, probably most of them I wouldnt want to fix as they arent great shots anyway. I should get a small slide viewer if they are still available I suppose or some sort of improvised light box. All my good holidays are in those boxes!!!!!!! Any advice would be greatly appreciated!:D

[sammdc]

vallie i toook mine to a photoplace and had them done but I only had about 10 from an aunty of mine and it wasn't cheap sorry I know I was no help what so ever hehehehehe but I do hope someone can help you as I loved the photos i got from the slides

[Vallie]

:) Thanks Caroline!! So if they can fix them I can!! Errrrrrrrr ...............:eek:

[debbers]

Vallie:

My hubby is looking into getting one ... so I'll be watching here for results! I'm very interested in how well these slide scanners really work.

My mom and dad and my hubby's mom and dad took *years* worth of slides. :gulp:

deb

[Greenfingers]

I've been down this route Vallie. It started with wanting to scan black and white negs- but also my many boxes of 35mm slides. The scanners which are best for this are (for me) too expensive, but I got an Epson Perfection 3490 -and ordinary scanner with special plastic mounts to hold up to 6 35mm slides at a time and scan each into separate files.
The results vary tremendously. Some of my slides from 1967 came out really well, but some much "younger" ones had lost there colour. I have certainly had to work on the in PSP. Some are very grainy and unusable, but as others are good, I don't feel that the scanner is at fault. Mine, like yours, seem very dirty (are we really both that slovenly? LOL)
Scanning is a slow job- I tried to get a compromise between an acceptable scanning time (about 2 minutes per slide) and quality of result. It was all a trial and error.
So this is not much help to you except to tell you that you are not alone:)

[diturpin]

Vallie, I've been thinking about doing the same with some slides from my mom and dad. Keep us posted on what you figure out. HP website might have an online manual for your scanner. They also have some tutorials, but I don't know if they have one on scanning slides. Good luck and like I said, keep us posted!

[debbers]

Do the slides age like photographs do? I mean, will they need 'unpinking' and stuff like that, too?

deb

[honeymoon]

I'm not sure what to do about the actual slide quality. But DH scanned all his parents slides on our scanner (which has a slide scanner on it).

He then turned them into a slide show and burnt them to CD's (we'd put them on DVD's now). These can be played in the DVD player and shown on the TV. The best thing was that he could make copies for his brother and sister as well. The hardest thing was making the labels for on the CD's and trying to find photos that didn't leave peoples heads being cut off in the hole in the CD centre.

[Vallie]

:lol: Labels are a pain! My husband was trying to make some and couldnt get the printer to print on the circles properly, I wouldnt even try! I am waiting for a few good days with nothing else to do then I will think about digging the boxes of slides out. My brother had some slides from the 1950s some are perfect colour, others pink or washed out. Same with mine from late 70s to 80s, some look great others wishy washy. A bit like how photos go. Some I took less than 20 years ago have deteriorated badly yet others are still bright. Must be the different quality of the films used and the processing. So nothing lasts forever!

[ScrapnCardCrazy]

Hi Everyone~

I, too, am in the middle of a huge, slide-scanning project. I have 20 years worth of slides that we've estimated totals about 3,000. So far I've scanned about 2,000, I think.

The Good: What I'm enjoying most about this project is SEEING these great photos again. Some, for the first time in many, many years since dragging the projector out got to be a pain. Two of my babies' newborn photos and early pictures are in this lot, as well as holidays galore. It's so fun to relive the memories as I'm doing the work scanning.

The Bad: I'm using an Epson Stylus Photo RX620 All-in-One which has a special slide holder that takes 4 slides at a time. It's really all very routine, BUT my Epson scanner is highly finicky when it's in the slide-scan mode. (I can scan photos or cards I've made, etc., with no problem). When I'm in Positive Film, Color (slide-scan) mode the scanner stops with no warning, and I have to re-open Epson Scan and pick up where I left off. It is very intermittent behavior, kind of nerve-wracking to stop/start again and again, and the hardest part of the scanning job for me.

I go into the full-size view of each previewed slide to crop out the extra junk (but nothing "historic" like an old car or toy) then do the full scan. When the scanner works, it does a wonderful job!

The Ugly: Our slides are from 1970 to about 1990. I've noticed very little deterioration in the quality or color in MOST of our shots. Every now and then, though, there's a few that the color is very bizarre looking and will need a lot of fixing in PSE once I get to that stage.

My whole goal is to preserve our photos and the stories that go along with them for future generations to enjoy...so every slide that scans successfully just gets me one step closer to achieving that goal!

hugs,
~jeanie.

[Vallie]

Hello Jeanie! I still havent done any scans of the slides! Too many other things to do, but I should start doing just a few at a time, at least some might get done. If I dont do it no one else will and that is a bit sad. Lots of happy memories in those boxes. It will be like in the future when someone comes across my boxes of cds and dvds of photos and the technology would have changed so much that no one can open them (they would probably have deteriorated anyway) I dont know what is permanent. It is okay to say keep updating as technology changes but I cant see the average oldie being able to or afford to do. The printed page seems to be the only one that may have some longevity after all. I think there will be whole generations of digital photos lost too. How many times do people just leave them on the computer and not print them? :cry: I am guilty of that although I do back them up but there is no hard copy for most of them. A lot to ponder on! And all those slides ............ :eek:

[Marriedin79]

About two years ago I purchased a slide scanner (Prime Film 1800u (http://www.graphic-design.com/photographic/wright/Scanner.html) a product of Pacific Imaging (http://www.scanace.com/en/index.php)) specifically for scanning my father's stash of slides. I've done it somewhat nilly-willy, but now I am on a mission to get the job done. I've even taught him how to do it so that he has something to keep himself occupied while he's at our house (instead of falling asleep in front of the television!).

Ours, too, have turned pink. If you look at this layout (http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=82255&cat=500&ppuser=17857) you can see how doing a levels adjustment can take care of the problem. Not all of them can be fixed, though, and that's when I just turn them to black and white.

I'd also suggest getting a little blower/brush combination (http://www.adorama.com/CPBBS.html?searchinfo=bulb%20brush&item_no=8). I give a quick sweep across both sides of the slide prior to scanning. It really cuts down on the dust removal process in PSE5.

[debbers]

My hubby's brand new slide scanner just arrived. I mean, it's still in the box.

Epson Perfection V750 M Pro

It came with a thingimajig that will hold 12 slides to scan, he added the following fairly serious packages to go with it:

SilverFastAI
Easy Color Calibration system

I believe it was around $700.

Stay tuned for more reports on it. WHEEEE!!!!

deb

[Vallie]

Wow, that sounds good Deb, my one only scans 4 at a time (I think! I only did one at a time!!). If you do so many at a time at a high res do they all go on one enormous image? Or do you scan them separately even though they are all loaded. Probably sounds dumb, just wondering if you end up with a huge image then have to crop them.
I cant find my scanner instruction book, but I downloaded a pdf copy from the net, that was handy. Jennifer or Karen in photography forum mentioned a site once that had every camera manual on it and I got my camera's one even though they don't make mine anymore. I cant find the real manual for that either. Shows you how organised I am.:rolleyes:
The little brush looks good compooper, I used to have one of those years ago come to think of it. I guess it has gone the way of the camera manuals!! :lol:

[debbers]

My husband assured me they'd be separate images - I know they're gonna take touching up anyway, there are slides from my grandparents, my parents, his parents, and a few from our early married years.

I really didn't want to think we'd have to crop a bunch out. I'll know more how it works when he gets it hooked up!

deb

[Vallie]

So Deb, it is now 9 months later, any progress with the slide scans??????? :lol: (psst. I havent done any!)

[debbers]

Hah! We haven't done or tried any. :(

The year has flown away since Mom passed away (last May) and I can't believe how long it's taken me to just get back into the swing of things. I'm still not doing everything I was before she got so sick.

I didn't believe it when people said it'd take 2 years. I think I'm now a believer.

Anyway ... I'll ask my husband when HE is going to try it!! ::grin:: How's THAT fun a positively devious idea?!

deb

[Vallie]

So sorry your Mom passed away Deb. Yes, it does take a lot out of you for sure.:hug:
Good idea about getting the old man interested, if you make it seem like it is his idea, even better! :tup: Deviousness can work to your advantage!:tup:
Trouble is with my computer desk at the moment, there is a lot of stuff stacked on top of the scanner. So I will have to move it and find everything another place to hide. Shows you how long since I used the thing. I will have to learn all over again. :lol:

[WoodsyWoman]

I've been scanning my parent's slides. After scanning many with a borrowed and very dated scanner designed for this type of thing only to end up with grainy prints, I (with my husband's help) discovered a cheap way to do it myself with the macro zoom setting on my camera, a cut down cardboard tube from an empty TP roll and a piece of nice smooth white plastic with no markings of any sort. The white plastic (or even lampshade) difuses the light behind it. I use the natural light coming in from the window. I set the white sheet or plastic on the window. I then set the slide on the white sheet or plastic with the tube on that. The tube eliminates a mirroring effect that I get. I stick the lens of the camera in to the tube and shoot the picture with the macro zoom setting. I found that a film speed of 64 seems to work the best. Not sure why as I do not understand enough about film speeds. At any rate, I am getting better pictures of the slides now than when I scanned them with a scanner that was designed for it. It goes quick and my computer never locks up because it is the camera that is doing all of the work. I have been very happy with the results.

Someday I might have the money for the really nice and really expensive equiptment for this project but for now, I've got something that is working just fine.

I'll put some layouts in my gallery when I get the chance. I even have one picture that came from just a corner of a slide. Pretty cool!

[omiof5]

Vallie, I started doing some scanning of 35 mm slides with an Epson Perfection and it really is a matter of trial and error and patience for slow scanning. It needs to be done while you're doing something else. Needs to be high resolution if you plan to edit it at all.

I'm having some very old photos restored by a graphics pro (works for the studios during the day). This is how he told me to scan before uploading: "The scanning resolution should be at least 600 dpi for an 8x10 photo. If the photo is smaller than 8x10, please raise that resolution so the resulting file is about 60 MB or larger."

He also made me scan with no corrections whatsoever, especially sharpening. He said automatic sharpening makes it especially difficult to edit effectively. HTH.

[Vallie]

That sounds interesting Woodsy, glad it works. I also find taking photos of photos sometimes is better than scanning the photo. I dont seem to get all the dust on them that way.
Thanks Omi, 60mb files!!! Yikes that is large. I have thousands of slides, my computer would die. Most of my slides are not that great so probably only a fraction of them I would scan. Trouble is I cant see them properly. My projector died years ago. I guess a light box with a magnifying glass would be good to have. Must get the old boy onto making the box. Give him something to do! Pigs might fly though. :lol:

[Greenfingers]

I saw somewhere about a month ago (but now I can't find it) a thread where someone described a method of taking photos of their slides held against a window. Sorry I can't remember who posted or the details.
Anyway it set me thinking. I have a cheap smallish light box (about 7x5inches). I have not only coloured slides from 60s 70s, but also old black and white negatives about 2.5 x 4.25 inches from the 1930s.
Out of a strong shoe box, I constucted 2 cardboard boxes black inside and larger than the slides and the negs. I focused the camara to find the distance at which I wanted to take the photo (using macro setting) and made the two boxes the right "height"- the one for the slides was not as high as the one for the larger b/w negs. I used two separate pieces of carboard- one to go flat on the light box with a hole in it the size of the neg/slide and one for the top end of the box with a circular hole for the camara lens to go through. The boxes are quite strong, so I can rest the camara on them to keep everything steady.
Result is hugely encouraging. I have tried sanning slides before with Epson scanner which has a slide adapter. It is ok but very slow. This method is far quicker and the results seem better. The greatest joy though is to get good results from the old black and white negs.
Big thanks to the person who suggested daylight if you happen to read this.
If anyone wants more exact measurements, I'll get out the ruler:)