Thread: Digitising old 35mm slides

High end printers will scan slides I have a Epson Photo 970 that claims not to be able to scan slides , I have scanned B/W negatives though have not tried slides.
You have a few options, in most places there are companies that will do this for a fee, or buy yourself a better printer, or find someone who has same that wants to earn some pocket money

Hi Lyle,
As a general rule of thumb you need the highest non interpolated scanner you can get. If you are aiming to produce something like 6"x 4"prints the the final resolution will be a sixth of the scanner resolution and may not suit your purpose. A dedicated scanner is a great help.
Don't let the scanner do any colour correction, it can make further correction in PS much more difficult.
Save as something other than .jpg to avoid any compression artifacts
You also need to be extremely careful to clean the slides before scanning, it will reduce the amount of time spent spot healing in PS

Sounds like a fun winter project
Arfur

I was looking at one of these after taking on board the replies.
It'll do the non interpolated scanning up to 14m apparently.
Good bad or indifferent. Budget wise it is at the upper limit.

Interested as it something I've been considering for ages.

We've a million photos on film. Getting them onto digital and backed up would be a decent project....

Something like this perhaps? Its 22 MP.

KODAK Slide N SCAN Film and Slide Scanner with Large 5” LCD Screen, Convert Color & B&W Negatives & Slides 35mm, 126, 110 Film Negatives & Slides to High Resolution 22MP JPEG Digital Photos

81RdTfBiqfL._AC_SL1500_.jpg

edit... didnt take me long to push up the chain of upgrades to this super-dooper whizz bang device!


The ideal solution for professional photographers, shutterbugs and graphic designers| Plustek Australia $700 from Teds.

Interesting device....

A2FEE-00600-1.jpg

I've gone with the one I put up a screenshot of.
It'll do to 22mp using its' software to enhance and 14mp raw.
That'll do hopefully without breaking the bank.
Lyle

an alternative, that may produce the quality you desire at a much, much lower cost, is to get out your slide projector and screen and take a digital photo of the projected image. Assuming your projection screen is OK, the cost will be negligible.

Thanks Ian.
But we've not had a projector for decades...
I think the way I'm going is best for us.
We can also loan this to 'lations to use so we can swap images too.
Great suggestion though.
Lyle

This is interesting from Film Resolution: The Pixel Count of Film
Its a bit on the old side re what digital cameras can so but the facts about film are still correct.

The Digital Resolution of FilmSo how many pixels does it take to describe all the detail we can get from film?
Fuji Velvia 50 is rated to resolve 160 lines per millimeter. This is the finest level of detail it can resolve, at which point its MTF just about hits zero.
Each line will require one light and one dark pixel, or two pixels. Thus it will take about 320 pixels per millimeter to represent what's on Velvia 50.
320 pixels x 320 pixels is 0.1MP per square millimeter.
35mm film is 24 x 36mm, or 864 square millimeters.
To scan most of the detail on a 35mm photo, you'll need about 864 x 0.1, or 87 Megapixels.
But wait: each film pixel represents true R, G and B data, not the softer Bayer interpolated data from digital camera sensors. A single-chip 87 MP digital camera still couldn't see details as fine as a piece of 35mm film.
Since the lie factor factor from digital cameras is about two, you'd need a digital camera of about 87 x 2 = 175 MP to see every last detail that makes onto film.

This assumes really good films (ie Velvia 50), a pro level lens and a very skilled photographer.

Originally Posted by BobL

This is interesting from Film Resolution: The Pixel Count of Film

This assumes really good films (ie Velvia 50), a pro level lens and a very skilled photographer.

I get the bit about really good films -- Kodachrome 64 and Ektachrome 100 would have a lower native resolution than Velvia 50. Perhaps as low as 100 lines per mm. Using your maths, that would bring the desired pixel count down to 200 x 200 = .04 MP per mm^2, or about 70 MP.
BUT, Lyle is unlikely to ever want to print an image bigger than 7 x 5 (inches) or A4 -- 8 x 11 (inches), so if his printer's resolution is set to 300 dpi (200 is probably enough), a scan resolution of about 8 MP should be more than sufficient for his purposes.


I also get the bit about pro level lenses vs consumer grade ones.


but a very skilled photographer? This I don't get.
How does the skill of the photographer affect the resolution achieved on the image?
I can see how the photographer's skill will influence the composition of a scene, but other than that ...

Originally Posted by ian

but a very skilled photographer? This I don't get.
How does the skill of the photographer affect the resolution achieved on the image?
I can see how the photographer's skill will influence the composition of a scene, but other than that ...

I guess Mr Rockwell is looking at resolution in terms of being able to see fine detail in an image.
If the photographer doesn't constrain a camera properly or optimise camera settings or lighting then image detail will suffer.

I had a couple thousand slides to digitize and wanted as good as possible results as reasonable. I used a Nikon Coolscan 5000 with a stack loader. The scanning software was Vuescan which I find is the best and most versatile for scanning anything. It will work with almost any scanner and reasonably priced.

I did some trials with the scanner to find the settings that worked fir me. You need to find settings that give you the resolution you are happy with along with the file size and scan time. As you increase resolution settings on the scanner file size and time goes up quickly.

Lastly, it helps to have a good monitor and graphics card so you can accurately view your files.