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Since there are so so many techies here - and kindly too, some advice would be much appreciated.

Slightly off topic on this forum, but I have been trying to research which scanner to buy to put (ancient) but top quality slides (35 mm) onto my computer.   What information I have been able to find is too technical for me, and I am concerned that the quality will not be great, and that it might be difficult to do. 

I have tracked down a Veho  VFS-004 5MP 35mm Negative & Slide Scanner and much cheaper on Amazon than Ebay or anywhere else so far.

Is there anyone who has some experience or knowledge of this ?

Many thanks in advance

Regards

Tegwini

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There is an feature about scanning photos in issue 302 of ComputerActive (17 to 30 September).

It states the following:

"Beware, though, that several companies now sell extremely cheap film scanners. Some of these devices are actually simple digital cameras that photograph the slide, and the quality of the results is usually poorer than that of a flatbed scanner, let alone a proper film scanner ..."

You pays your money ...

 

Some years ago, I was in the position that you are now, with at least 2,000 slides. I bought a cheapish dedicated scanner and eventually regretted doing so. If the photographs are important to you, be prepared to spend at least £200 or so on a decent scanner.

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There are some thorough reviews of scanners here which may be useful to read to give you a better understanding of how things work.

You can pick up some of these scanners quite cheaply on ebay (as I did for scanning a load of old negatives) THiS for example will do 4 slides at once at a pretty reasonable quality.

You can get dedicated photo scanners but for most people the results from a multi purpose (maybe Epson or Canon) scanner will be very high quality.

Danny

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Many thanks all  for taking the time to help me.

I have now looked at and spoken to someone in a computer shop in town(Salisbury) and seen an HP scanjet HPG3110 scanner which is a flat bed scanner with an indented place in the lid to slide in the slides.  This seems to match some of your responses that a flat bed scanner is better than a dedicated slide scanner.

I also discovered that a CD/DVD could perhaps only hold as many as 14 slide images scanned at 9400 dpi - Whatever that means!!   But it means I think, I might need a portable hard drive, and this project is getting not only complicated, but expensive.

I did plan to send most of the images to a friend on CD - now plan B it seems.

OH has suggested that I use Facebook with its huge system and they could download from that - anybody ever used it in this way ?  At present I am not on Facebook.

Thanks once again

Regards

Tegwini                    

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Why on earth would you need to scan at 9400 dpi? I think what you need to do is decide what you want to do with the scans. If you just want to view them on a TV/monitor then there is absolutely no need for that kind of resolution.

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DPI= dots per inch, think of a newspaper photograph it's made up of dots, the more dots per inch the better the photograph will look.

You will be able to set the DPI yourself before scanning (resolution) so you can reduce it to a more sensible figure and therefore fit more photographs on the CD without noticing a big reduction in quality. Web site photographs for example are only usually at 92dpi but display quite well until the image gets to full size on the screen.

When manufactures write their specifications they are usually showing off as colour images are composed of three primary colours and so you get only a third of the actual dpi . 

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Thanks Jay & Teapot

Perhaps that was a salesman showing off ?  He was in reality a spotty yoof.  Perhaps knowing almost nothing about this I believed him at the time - but I didn't buy anything, so not yet fully taken in.   Husband says I need 'an idiot-proof''  machine and sadly I have to agree with that.

A flat bed scanner does seem more versatile - and easier to use.  And the quality might be better - perhaps ?

But, I did think that I wanted to get reasonable quality pictures - but plan to use whatever I buy only for my own slides, so it would be silly to spend lots on it.

And,   I have the slides,  so the copies on a cd are for someone else who was special to me decades ago,  but isn't now!                                   Or perhaps to  reminisce ?

Regards

Tegwini

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How many slides have you got and what do you want to do with them finally?

It may be easier to use a professional service to get the slides made into prints.

This would also make it easier to scan them on a flatbed scanner.

The scanners that scan slides are not often very good quality and suffer from the slide not being totally clean and flat. If you want a print made of any size the quality can be dubious.

Dependent on what you want to do with the pics they can be scanned in different ways and resolutions to suit differing end uses.

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[quote user="Théière"]

DPI= dots per inch, think of a newspaper photograph it's made up of dots, the more dots per inch the better the photograph will look.

You will be able to set the DPI yourself before scanning (resolution) so you can reduce it to a more sensible figure and therefore fit more photographs on the CD without noticing a big reduction in quality. Web site photographs for example are only usually at 92dpi but display quite well until the image gets to full size on the screen.

When manufactures write their specifications they are usually showing off as colour images are composed of three primary colours and so you get only a third of the actual dpi . 

[/quote]

Increasing dpi will not always improve quality - you need to suit the dpi to the subtrate you are printing on. Newsprint for instance is too rough and open a surface to accept 300 dpi and all you would get is a messy blob - that's why they use a low resolution and you can easily see the dots.

For web use it is not just the dpi that matters but the size of the scan - if there is not enough information in the scan it cannot be shown at a large size without every dot being seen.

In simple terms there are three light primaries (RGB - red, green, blue) as used by TV and computer screens but for printing on paper the primary colours are different (CMYK - black, magenta, yellow and cyan) you need to use black or the best you can achieve is a muddy brown.

It's all to do with reflected and absorbed light.

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Hi Dog

Many thanks for the help.

I have perhaps 2000 slides, so a print service would be too expensive - it's as much as a £ here to put them onto a CD - onto a print it can't be much less I imagine.

I only want to send them to someone in a compact or cheap(ish) format.

What I have seen so far does not convince me that it will be easy - or the quality good - I am almost tempted to give up - and move the huge box into storage into the french house where it will be forgotten- but that is not the 'Dunkirk' spirit is it ?

Tegwini

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[quote user="tegwini"]
Hi Dog
Many thanks for the help.
I have perhaps 2000 slides, so a print service would be too expensive - it's as much as a £ here to put them onto a CD - onto a print it can't be much less I imagine.

I only want to send them to someone in a compact or cheap(ish) format.

What I have seen so far does not convince me that it will be easy - or the quality good - I am almost tempted to give up - and move the huge box into storage into the french house where it will be forgotten- but that is not the 'Dunkirk' spirit is it ?

Tegwini

[/quote]

As you have so many it might be best to ignore quality and scan them cheap and cheerfully at low res to make 'a contact sheet' as such so the recipient can choose which pics they may perhaps like to have a better quality print of.

I had a client in UK I bought a Minolta scanner for - I got it cheap- trade for £800. They then realised that if they scanned the thousands of pics of African wildlife they had at high resolution they couldn't possibly store them I had to return the scanner.

The good quality scanners I used cost many tens of thousands of pounds.

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[quote user="tegwini"]
Hi Dog
Many thanks for the help.
I have perhaps 2000 slides, so a print service would be too expensive - it's as much as a £ here to put them onto a CD - onto a print it can't be much less I imagine.

I only want to send them to someone in a compact or cheap(ish) format.

What I have seen so far does not convince me that it will be easy - or the quality good - I am almost tempted to give up - and move the huge box into storage into the french house where it will be forgotten- but that is not the 'Dunkirk' spirit is it ?

Tegwini

[/quote]

As you have so many it might be best to ignore quality and scan them cheap and cheerfully at low res to make 'a contact sheet' as such so the recipient can choose which pics they may perhaps like to have a better quality print of.

I had a client in UK I bought a Minolta scanner for - I got it cheap- trade for £800. They then realised that if they scanned the thousands of pics of African wildlife they had at high resolution they couldn't possibly store them I had to return the scanner.

The good quality scanners I used cost many tens of thousands of pounds.

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