neunerge

I have thousends of old 35mm slides and negatives that I rarely look at because they aren't in digital format. What is the best way to efficiently and cheaply convert them to JPEGs?

snowbear

"Best" and "cheaply" do not belong together in this sentence!

You can get a scanner and do them yourself, but it will probably take many, many hours - most of the consumer (read affordable) scanners I've seen will only hold six unmounted frames of film, for mounted slides. They make scanners specifically for film, but they cost a few thousand dollars.

It's funny: I know a photographer that, years ago, decided because everyone tries to look over each other's shoulder while they went through the photo albums, he copied the prints to slides using a copy stand & macro lens. That way he could just project them against the wall and everyone could see them.

wschubert Loc: Clarkston Washington

I recently purchased a refurbished Epson V330 from Epson for $59. So far in the few weeks I have had it I have scanned about 900 slides and negatives - lots more to go. Yes its slow but I do it while doing other things on the computer. A great side benefit has been looking a pictures I have not looked at in 20 to 30 years. I enjoy the process and each box of slides or enevlope of negatives I dig out is a new treasure to look at. The overall quality of the scanner is very good, I am scanning in professional mode at 4800dpi resolution and the images come out very well. The biggest issue I have found in scanning my slides is dust, even though they have been stored in boxes. Although many sides need only a blast of air to clean them a large number do need more. - any helpful hints on cleaning slides would be very much appreciated :) The cleaning does slow the whole process down some. For those of you that sent your slides out to a service did they do any cleaning?

mdorn Loc: Portland, OR

Gosh, I'm afraid your stuck... converting thousands of slides and negatives is neither cheap nor efficient. However, it's worth it. How can you put a price on memories, right? Okay, that's my sales pitch.

There are a few good photo/negative scanning services online. Here is one that I used:

http://www.gophoto.com/

However, now you can go through Costco if this is available in your area. Warning, it's not cheap, so I guess I didn't answer your question. Personally, I would NOT do it myself unless you have a lot of time and patience. I chose not to do it myself because my time is better spent on earning the money to have this done by a professional with all the best equipment.

Good luck with your decision. I really do think it's worth it.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

A couple of years ago, a local photo store had a half price sale on doing transfers. I brought over 1,000 slides in. I eventually went back and paid something over $100 and got them all on DVDs. All the slides were cleaned somehow before being scanned.

I have them on my computer and on my wife's. Now we can look at our wedding pictures, vacation shots, etc., at will.

I tried scanning some myself, but there was a world of difference in the quality. I did successfully transfer Super 8 movies to digital, and that worked fine.

Beaker Loc: Raleigh, NC

I have not been happy with the results from consumer grade slide/film scanners. I have also tried photographing the images projected onto a screen; again without success. What does work very well is to copy the slides using a dslr and a macro lens. It would be best to also use a bellows with a slide/film attachment but I have been able to get by with a celindrical oatmeal box with a cutout, a little larger than the slides' image, in the bottom. A cardboard ledge for resting the slides should be taped under the opening. Wedge the oatmeal box horizontally between two large books on a table. The camera on a tripod and can be roughly focused by moving the lens in and out of the oatmeal box. Then focus using manual focus. Strive for a 1:1 image. An open window or a light bulb can be used as a light source. Remember to adjust your camera for the type of light. Shoot at f11 and adjust the shutter speed to gets the perfect exposure. Finally, use canned air and a soft brush to remove dust. Special "film" brushes can be purchased at a good camera shop. I was able to copy 650 slides in about three hours with the help of another person to switch the slides. This included the time to setup the above apparatus. It's kind of crude but it works.

GAClowers Loc: Tacoma, Washington

I had years of slides in storage and decided to scan them to digital. I asked a good friend for advice. He said the first thing to do is throw away about 90% of them. I loaded all the slides in projector trays and spent many hours projecting them on a screen. I looked at each one and any that I really wanted I took out and stored in separate trays. I found that most of the slides that I thought I wanted at the time of capture, were not any longer desirable. I ended up keeping only a small percentage of the slide bank. I then scanned them to digital. This action saved me hundreds of hours.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Very good advice. You don't want to waste your time or money copying junk. I threw away dozens when I sorted them to bring to the camera store.

BoarHog Loc: Croaker, VA

This sounds very interesting, Beaker. I will give it a try for fun. Thanks for the tip. I have been scanning my slides with an old HP scanner 5370c with an adapter. It does very well.

fabians Loc: Glendale, AZ

I just did 75 slide trays with 140 slides each. Took Approx 75 minutes per tray to scan to HD, like a 100 hours. I can't remember the name of the company of the device I bought for like $130. Something like Pacifica and the product was like Memory-ease. Unit held 4 slides, you scanned each slide, then changed out the slides. Companys that will do it for you charge between .27 and .50 each. It would have cost me almost $4000 to convert all my slides. I saved $3900 by doing it myself.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

For so many slides, that's definitely the way to go. If my local camera store wasn't having a deal on conversion, I might have tried it myself. I had a total of about 1,400 done over a period of two months.

Meives Loc: FORT LAUDERDALE

I paid about $400 for my HP Photosmart scanner. It does 35mm, slides, and up to 5x7 pictures. It's slow, but gets the job done. This one is obsolete now, but google scanners will give you a choice.

saichiez Loc: Beautiful Central Oregon

Wow.. some really interesting comments in this thread....

1) For instance, are they not "memories" until they get digitized?

2) My slides will never be as good as scanned images as they are as slides.

3) For the most part, the storage of my slides will keep them in good shape, longer than any one type of digital media.

4) And then there is the migration of digitized images to new media as technology evolves.

5) Not to mention, finding technology that still reads non-migrated digital files after 8-15 years.

6) CD rot (look it up). You're in for a huge surprise if you are trusting your "memories" to CD/DVD's

7) Been there, Done that...... Biggest PITA in my lifetime and not at all inexpensive if I count my $50 per hour labor as a computer tech (and I'm inexpensive, but damn good!) Figure about 1 hour per ten slides, with Post Processing (which you WILL now do on the digital file) as extra time spent.

There, now do you know how I feel about scanning transparencies and negative.

OK... yeah, I'll pay to have one or a few scanned if I need to print them. Hardly ever just view them.

mdorn Loc: Portland, OR

Good reality check saichiez! Thanks. However, to me it's about preserving memories more than it is replacing them. I will never chuck my prints after they are scanned. As a computer tech you know the value of redundancy. Of course, there are no guarantees in life especially with the evolution of technology, and most of us spend a lot of money on insurance never to use it. Wasteful? Perhaps, but now we are talking about philosophy.

flyguy Loc: Las Cruces, New Mexico

Look on line at Adorama, they sell a number of products that will clean off the stubborn dirt on slides and prints.

Also, I would suggest that you buy an inexpensive loupe that you can use sort out the ones you really want by holding it up close to the slide and up to the light. Will save you many hours in the process by not having to scan slides of dubious value.