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[GRADE 1 1]

I am on the Market for a slide scanner, wanting to put about 500 slides onto pc, anyone got one? Can you give me any advice?

Thanks

[Administrative Account 7]

Be careful of the cheap and cheerful automated type you see in papers or in photo shop windows. There's nothing inherently wrong with them, but it's vital to remember that 35mm negs/slides are small. To increase a neg or slide to 6x4" for instance to print will mean quite a large increase in its size and that means the ppi drops off massively. It might look fine on screen at a slight increase, but start to make it bigger and it will be noticeably 'jaggy' and worse on printing.

If you scan a neg or slide in at it's original size you'd have to increase it more than 400% to get a 6x4" and for a nice print out you still would need at least 200ppi, preferably more. If you can scan it in so that at 6x4" it will be 200ppi or higher fine, or, make sure the scanner will be able to scan the neg or slide in at around 1000ppi to be sure of a nice print at 6x4".

I know at one time some those small scanners designed for this just didn't have the ppi capability, or the quality, to be able to scan and then produce a good print though of course things have changed in recent years. An A4 home scanner with adjustable ppi and enlargements are slow and a pain, although you can sometimes batch scan up to a fixed number at a time, however, they are the best option. Sadly, though home scanners that are that capable aren't cheap (compared to just a happy desktop scanner), you will probably find the finished quality better.

[TallGuy1546081014 + 557]

I used to use one of THESE The Plustex OpticFilm 7600iSE. Quality was good, though slow, then due to a OS upgrade the drivers didn't work any more and I passed it over to my father to scan in all his negatives from days in the Navy.

The OptiFilm 760iSE is probably still one of the best "low cost" solutions and remarkably is actually one of the few pieces of IT hardware that is the same price now as when I bought mine 4 year ago.