Digitizing 35mm slides to jpeg's: I have approximately 2600 old slides to digitize. Two questions I would appreciate help with: 1. I am in the Pacific NW: What experience, bad or good...

rleonetti Loc: Portland, Oregon

I have approximately 2600 old slides to digitize. Two questions I would appreciate help with:

1. I am in the Pacific NW: What experience, bad or good, with providers of this service have you had?

2. Since my intention is to look through the finished product, is there a dedicated slide scanner that is fast enough and not horribly expensive you would recommend I buy and do it myself?

3. Extra question: For long term storage not including my existing hard drives: thumb drive, or portable hard drive or what to put the jpegs on?

Thanks for any help on any question.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

1. I got a slide/negative scanner at Costco YEARs ago and did them myself, but I only has a couple of hundred. I still have negatives to do...

2. At 50¢ a slide it would be $1,300. (Ive seen 35¢ to 75¢ each) Back then the scanner was under $125 I think. But it does take time, and if you don't like the first scan, you can do another.

3. They are stored on C: with multiple local hard drive backups and Carbonite cloud.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

I have the Epson V550. Current version is the V600 at about $300. It is NOT fast, but results are very good and it does four at a time. The Epson V850 is another $1000 but said to be a lot faster and does a dozen at a time.

Any scanner you buy can be sold so your net cost might be minimal.

bcheary Loc: Jacksonville, FL

I used a Wolverine It is tedious but does work! I haven't used it in quite awhile but there are newer versions on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/wolverine-slide-converter/s?k=wolverine+slide+converter

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

rleonetti wrote:

I have approximately 2600 old slides to digitize. ... (show quote)

I can answer the last question. MDisks for the best long term archive storage available, but a copy in a major cloud provider (Amazon,Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc) in the event the MDisks are destroyed (fire,,,).

bw79st Loc: New York City

You might want to consider not saving them as only JPEGs. If you think that someone in the family, long after you are gone, might want to work with your scans and has expert software to use, then you should save copies as DNG files. I have an Epson 700 and a Canon 4000US. The Canon is a slide/film strip scanner and does a much superior job to a flat scanner. I use Vuescan software which allows me, in one scan, to save an image as both DNG and JPEG files with the same file name. I am currently trying to archive family photos from as many in the family who will lend me what their parents saved. I make a DNG copy of everything!

jjanovy Loc: Lincoln, Nebraska

I use an Epson 550, scanning them at 1200 ppi. It only does four at a time but I’m happy with the results. There’s a newer version of the 550. Price is reasonable and I use it for a lot of things in addition to the slides.

coolhanduke Loc: Redondo Beach, CA

Google 35mm slide scanner.
As for storage, get an SSD drive.

Sidwalkastronomy Loc: New Jersey Shore

My brother did my family vacation slides from our childhood. Big issue was the mounts were cardboard. Now with 60 year old cardboard, the amount of cardboard dust was an issue. Just carefully handling still had dust issues. Software could probably remove some but with 5000 slides the time issue was a problem.

DaveyDitzer Loc: Western PA

rleonetti wrote:

I have approximately 2600 old slides to digitize. ... (show quote)

I chose to use a Nikon 40mm macro lens and Nikon slide holder and a daylight (5600) LED. This allowed me to shoot RAW and post process to my satisfaction. Total cost about $500 or so. I can also chose among different camera bodies depending upon how much resolution I want to work with.

fourlocks Loc: Londonderry, NH

bsprague wrote:

I have the Epson V550. Current version is the V600 at about $300. It is NOT fast, but results are very good and it does four at a time. The Epson V850 is another $1000 but said to be a lot faster and does a dozen at a time.

Any scanner you buy can be sold so your net cost might be minimal.

I have the V600 and I'll second bsprague's recommendation for an Epson. The V600 handles 4 slides at once and the time to scan depends on the the dots per inch setting. It also has a respectable amount of pre-processing capabilities to adjust color, sharpness, color restoration, dust removal, etc. You just have to remember to go to the professional setting and first scan the slides in "preview" mode that lets you make adjustments before the full scan.

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

Get a flat bed scanner like an Epson V600 and do it yourself. I do all mine at a resolution of 600, you can go much higher for a prized few that you may want to make large prints from. I think most "dedicated" slide scanners are limited in their resolution range.

kenpic Loc: Edmonds, WA

Kenmore Camera offers scanning (among many other services). You could give them a try and decide whether or not to do them yourself.

JeffL Loc: New Jersey

bsprague wrote:

I have the Epson V550. Current version is the V600 at about $300. It is NOT fast, but results are very good and it does four at a time. The Epson V850 is another $1000 but said to be a lot faster and does a dozen at a time.

Any scanner you buy can be sold so your net cost might be minimal.

I've been using the V550 for hundreds of slides and thousands of negatives. It is a slow process, but with the Silverfast 9 software, or even Epson's Scan Utility, it is not difficult. You just have to understand that this is a long-term project, won't happen overnight. I save the jpgs to a separate portable HDD, and I have Backblaze cloud backup on all of my drives.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I've used ScanCafe to have hundreds of old slides converted, and they did an excellent job. You send them a bunch, and they scan them and then let you preview them. You can eliminate a certain percentage. After they have completed the final scanning, you will get a link to download them while they are being put onto a disk and mailed to you. They clean the slides and color-correct them. Be aware that any size other than 35mm will cost more.

There's no way I would scan and process 1,000 or more slides myself.