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Is it possible to scan color slides?

18 years ago

I just found some color slides of pictures I took when the Queen Mary was on her last voyage.I would like to get them in my cp so that I can run off copies, but I can't find anything in my HP Officejet 7310 "All In One" as to how to scan or print the slides. Any suggestions?

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Comments (7)

bus_driver
18 years ago
Yes. The scanner must be backlighted. Epson offers some good ones. My Epson Perfection 4990 PHOTO Pro does a great job, but the software can be unstable.
bestlawn
18 years ago
My scanner came with a backlight aparatus for slides and the template to place them into. When I plug it into the scanner, the program automatically operates for slides only. Not having anything for scanning slides means you'll probably have to have them scanned elsewhere or purchase the equipment from HP. My scanner is also an HP.
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How to scan..? Need a crash course.
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Practice will let you decide as you start scanning. Try a few of your own photos so you have a basic idea before you attend the shindig. Use the auto scan and see what it does. You have an upscale scanner so output should e great. If photos are small, worn, scratched or torn then I select a higher resolution or increase the size so I can work on it later. I rarely use other scanner settings, relying on my photo editing software to do these things. I recently scanned a 1968 passport black and white photo of my wife at 600% of the original size, cleaned it up and printed it as an 8 x 10 and it came out quite good IMHO. DPI. What do you intend to do with the scans? I ask because a computer reads 72 DPI but if you intend to print then that is useless and will show jaggies so if I intend to print I select 300 DPI. Again, play a little and make your choices.
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need help scan b/w negatives
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When you scan these photos you should play around a bit first to get comfortable with the concept. Once you feel comfortable you should scan as bitmaps (.bmp) rather than jpeg (.jpg) because the quality is better. Increase the scan size so you are creating a 2 or 3 megabyte scan. Then if you wish to print or fix any tears, bends or other damage you have a nice sized file to work with. Marooma's link shows you have a flat bed scanner, great. You can set them up to scan square off the bed with that scanner. I have an HP flat bed scanner, it was given to me as mine died. But HP seem to want to control too much, hopefully you can set yours how you want it not how HP feels you should do them. (I need to get at it and see what I can really do before I bad mouth mine anymore) DO NOT scan in black and white as the results are far too stark, you will not be happy. Use full colour scanning, this is where the playing to start is so important because you can try various settings until you feel comfortable with the output. You could try duotone or greyscale just to see what it creates for you. Do you have any damaged photos?
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Anne, I was talking to the Canon tech support guy the other day (because I messed up my connections when I changed computers), and he said my scanner, the 9950F, was a great model because it scans different sizes of negatives. (My dad had several cameras, and produced negatives in several sizes.) According to him, Canon isn't making one like that anymore because of low demand for this feature. I know the current models will scan 35mm film. I think you'd have fun scanning your old family negatives. If your scanner doesn't handle the size you have, you could look for a used model that does.
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Comments (27)
No, flatbed scanners can't be counted on to accommodate negatives. You need to find one that has settings and physical properties that will allow negative scanning. Scanning negatives requires backlighting. I was recently on the phone with a Canon techie, and he mentioned that my scanner was so great because it takes negatives of different sizes, and it was the only one Canon made that would do that. Unfortunately, it's not being manufactured now. I took a look on Amazon and found this one, which will scan slides, negatives and medium-format panoramic film up to 6 x 22 cm. I usually have the negative holder on my scanner set to an opening of 2x3". If I want to scan a 2x2" negative, I just set it in the opening, leaving blank space around it. The preview will come up as a black rectangle, but if I draw a crop box inside the rectangle, my image will show up. I can then adjust the crop to include what I want before I click Scan. Perhaps the DPReview people can recommend other scanners. I'm also wondering if you could use a light box to "scan" the negatives with your camera. Scanning is basically the same as taking a picture. I've handled some slides this way. Because these slides were damaged (mounted under glass and now stuck to the glass--and even worse in some cases), and because I'm not using a tripod, the results aren't wonderful. But I think I could do a lot better if I put some thought into this and started out with better slides.
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jerry_nj
18 years ago
If you buy something, get a photo scanner, not a "flat bed" scanner with some after-market backlight arrangement. Most, many(?) scanners, especially the ones that come on the "all in one" multipurpose machines have only 300 dpi resolution, way to low to get anything like 35mm film quality/resolution.

I have a low cost Epson Perfection V100, it has hight resolution. I think I got it on a rebate offer about a year ago for about $60.
bob414
18 years ago
If you only have a few slides and do not have a scanner which is equipped to scan them for you it may be best to have it done. Someone is a recent thread said that they had it done at walmart for a very reasonable price.
minnie_tx
18 years ago
I found a few and just scanned them and they came out fairly well. I didn't really want to invest in expensive processing and just wanted to have copy of it. give it a try and then fool around with it in XnView or something like that.
calpat
Original Author
18 years ago
Thanks to all of you for the suggestions. I think I'll take them to WalMart and let them print them up.
iowagirl2006
18 years ago
I just purchased the Epson V200 from NewEgg for 69.99. I can scan up to 4 slides at once with the push of a button. It puts each one into a seperate file.

For just a few - the Wal-Mart idea is probably the best.

This is a scan of a WW2 era slide. The slide itself is not in the best condition - but just wanted to give you an idea of what it can do. I used the resolution of 600dpi. 300 is adequate though.

{{gwi:1452662}}

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