There are many 35mm slides tucked away in closets, attics, basements, and drawers. Their owners may have inherited the slides from relatives or friends. Or they may have gone to the trouble thirty or forty years ago to have their vacations and family events preserved on slides. Very few people watch “old-fashioned” slide shows today. Slide projectors have become outdated, many are broken, and most people don’t have the time to set up a slide projector and view their old slides.
The solution to this dilemma is to convert slides to a digital formal. Old 35mm slides can be converted to TIFF or JPEG format and stored on CD’s or DVD’s. This allows for convenient viewing on a computer monitor or television. When you convert slides to digital format, the CD’s and DVD’s take up little storage space. You can organize your photographs according to date or subject and find the exact photograph you want at any time. You will also be able to email or print your slide photographs once they are stored on a CD or DVD.
You can convert slides to digital images yourself. One of the least expensive ways to do this is to take a picture of the slide with a digital camera. To hold the camera steady, use a tripod, with the extension bar pointed towards the floor. Attach the camera to the extension bar, place the slide light box underneath the camera, place a slide in the light box, and take the picture. This method has several drawbacks, including the amount of time required to convert slides and the poor quality of some of the digital pictures.
You can also use a slide scanner to convert slides. Scanners come in a variety of styles and prices. A high quality scanner can cost thousands of dollars. There are some less expensive models, but you may not be pleased with the digital images produced by these scanners. You will not be able to print your digital images with the lower-end scanners. If you want to convert slides without worrying about the dust that inevitably finds its way to slides, you will need a higher priced model that has the capability of covering the dust for a blemish-free image.
Although there are several alternatives you can use to convert slides, the most trouble-free way is to use a professional photography service that converts slides. You will not need to purchase special equipment or learn to use new software. These services have equipment that can enhance your slide photographs. The resolution of your digital images will be higher than what you will be able to achieve by taking pictures of your slides or using a scanner at home. Dust, scratches, and other marks will be removed from the images. Photograph colors will be adjusted to create true-to-life images. This is especially important if your slides have faded over time. Professional services that convert slides typically guarantee their work. The most reputable services accept payment only after you have received the digital images and have had time to review them.
About forty years ago, 35mm slides were a favored way to chronicle vacations and special family events. Businesses used slide presentations for instructional and sales purposes. Today, 35mm slide shows have become almost obsolete. Not many people take the time to bring a slide projector out of its storage area, set up their 35mm slides in the projector’s carousel, and then show the slides on a screen. If you’re one of the many people with boxes and cartons of old slides that have accumulated in closets and drawers, you might want to try scanning your 35mm slides. This will free up storage space and give you a quick and easy way to present your old pictures. Scanning 35mm slides will give you high quality pictures and even allows you to make additional prints.
One of the first things you need to do before you begin your project of scanning 35mm slides is to select the slides that you really want to keep. Most people have a very difficult time getting rid of photographs, and this is true of slides, too. Since you’ll be spending both time and money to scan your slides, you’ll need to decide if you really need to keep all of them. Choose the best slides and the ones that have the most sentimental value for you, and you’ll end up with a great collection of pictures to view and share with family and friends.
Scanning 35mm slides is something you can do at home. There are many different models of 35mm slide scanners, ranging in prices from under $100 to well over $1,000. If you’re short on time, consider using a professional photography service for scanning 35mm slides. You can probably find a local photography business or you can use an online photography service. Compare costs of the various businesses, but also consider the reputation and services offered.
If you decide to try your hand at scanning 35mm slides at home, look for a scanner that fits your budget and provides features that you need. Some scanners only allow you to view the scanned prints from the scanner, and other models have software that lets you scan your 35mm slides to your computer and then transfer them to a CD or DVD. You can then view your slides at any time with a computer or DVD player and television. This means you will need much less storage space for your slides, and you can easily carry your slides and show them anywhere. Make sure the scanner software is easy to learn and use.
One of the great things about scanning 35mm slides is that your pictures can be enhanced. You or the photography service professionals can crop the pictures to include only what you want to see, and the colors and brightness of the pictures can be adjusted. Debris that can’t be cleared from the slides and scratches are not a problem. Scanner software fills in the blemished areas with color for a professional-grade picture. No one will suspect that the slide’s image was ever less than perfect!
If you have boxes of slides stacked on closet shelves in your home, you’re not alone. Preserving photographs on slides was very popular at one time. With a slide projector and a screen or blank wall, you were all set to entertain family and friends for hours with pictures of your latest family excursions or events. Over time, your collection of slides grew, and you may have inherited even more slides from other family members. If you know where your slide projector is, there is a good chance that it’s broken or that you just can’t find the time to bring it out and set up the slide carousel for an hour or two of reminiscing. If you don’t want to lose the treasured memories contained in your slides but find keeping your slides and projector a nuisance, consider scanning your slides. Here are some of the reasons you might find this to be the perfect solution for you.
Scanning slides is easy. You can buy your own slide scanner and complete this project in your spare time. Others in your family can help, too, which will make the scanning process more fun and less time consuming. Slide scanners are available in stores and online in a wide range of prices.
You can choose to have a professional photography service scan your slides. This is a good option for those with a limited amount of spare time or those that don’t want to invest in a slide scanner. Professional photography services can usually return your slides within a week or two, and they guarantee their work. You might want to scan some of the slides yourself and send some of them to a photography service.
You can easily carry your photographs with you. When you scan your slides, they can be transferred to CD’s or DVD’s. You’ll be able to carry hundreds of pictures on a few thin, lightweight disks. If you want to take them to view somewhere else, it won’t be a problem.
You can keep your pictures organized any way you like. Your slides might be grouped together according to the year they were taken, the locations, the people in the photographs, or some other categorization. If you own a large collection of slides, you know how easy it is to misplace a slide or drop a box of them, leading to a jumbled mess. When you scan your slides, you can choose which photographs go on each CD or DVD. You can label the disks, making it easy for you to locate favorite shots.
You can improve the quality of your photographs. Slides tend to collect dust and other particles, and they can be accidently scratched. The color on slides will fade over time. Scanning slides enables you to enhance the quality of the photograph by adding color to the photographs and covering up any scratches or other marks on the slides. You can also crop the photographs to focus more on the subjects in the pictures and exclude unnecessary background areas.
Technology today moves at a very fast pace, and it’s sometimes difficult to keep up with all the latest advancements. One area that has seen a great deal of improvement is photography. Years ago, there were few options for archiving photographs. Slides were one option. Purchasing a special projector to view the slides was required, and many slides were viewed a few times and then set aside. Countless homes have a large collection of 35mm slides, and most of these slides have been hidden away in boxes, taking up space in closets and other storage areas. Fortunately, you can now convert slides to digital images, giving yourself an easy way to store and view your most treasured slides from years gone by.
When you convert slides to digital images, you will be able to enjoy viewing your slide photographs several different ways. Once your slides are in a digital format, you can transfer the images to a CD or DVD. This allows you to look at your slide photographs on any television with a DVD player or a PC or laptop computer. You can arrange the digital photographs by subject, chronologically, or in any other order you choose.
Digital slide shows are a popular way to present photographs, and these are much easier to set up and view than the old style slides. It’s easy to make special CD’s or DVD’s for birthdays, anniversaries, and other special events, and you can make as many copies as you want. You can print the photographs on your home computer printer, have them printed at a photography center, and send them as attachments to your emails to family and friends.
One of the most popular ways to convert slides to digital images is with a slide scanner. You can find many varieties of scanners online and in retail stores. Be careful not to break your budget when you buy a scanner, but be sure you purchase a scanner that you’ll be pleased with for years to come. You might not need all the “bells and whistles” of the top-of-the-line models, but make sure the scanner has a good software, is easy to operate, and has features that you consider essential. Read reviews of scanners you are interested in to help you make your final decision.
You originally took the pictures for your slides because there were places, people, and events you wanted to remember. You slides were once a great way to bring back memories, but this way of viewing photographs has become outdated. When you convert slides to digital images, you can improve the quality of the photograph with the scanner software and have professional grade photos to add to your collection of pictures. Try to remove as much dust as possible from the slides before scanning them. Remaining dust, other particles, and scratches can be eliminated from your final digital image with the scanner software. You can even brighten colors, which is a big plus when you’re working with faded slides. Converting your slides to digital images is the best way to have quality pictures that will last a lifetime.
If you have boxes and boxes of 35mm slides tucked away in a closet, you’ll be glad to know that you can covert these slides to digital format with a slide converter. Those old slides probably hold years of memories, and you don’t want to just let them sit on a shelf. Most slide projectors weren’t used regularly even forty years ago, when slides were a popular way to present pictures of family events and vacations. Setting up the projector took time, and the slides had to be placed one at a time into the projector carousel. The same holds true today, and that is assuming that the slide projector is still in working condition. Using a slide converter to transfer your slides to a digital format on CD’s or DVD’s is a great way to make your pictures from years past accessible and easy to view.
There are several types of slide converters available, and many of these are under $100. One of the differences between slide converters and slide scanners is the number of slides that can be digitized at one time. Slide converters usually scan one slide at a time, but this is usually done within seconds. Slide scanners can typically digitize about forty slides at one time. If you are purchasing a slide converter, check to see how many slide trays come with the converter. Some slide converters have only one slide tray, and your project can become very tedious. It’s a good idea to purchase extra slide trays so you can set up several sets of slides at once to keep your project moving.
When you are searching for a slide converter, be sure to find out the number of megapixels the converter supports. A pixel is the smallest unit of a digital unit. An image with a greater number of pixels per inch (PPI) will have a better resolution than images with a lower number of PPI. The more megapixels the convertor’s sensors support, the sharper your digital images will be. This is especially important if you plan to make enlarged prints from your digital images.
Some consumers find that the slide converters they purchase do not meet their expectations. Common complaints include software that is difficult to manage, low quality images with poor resolution, and flimsy slide trays that fail to work properly. Extensive slide conversion projects may also be very time-consuming.
If you want your slides to be converted into digital images, using the services of a professional photography business may be your best bet. A service that offers slide conversion will save you time and money. Your slides will be converted to a digital format using state-of-the art equipment, resulting in digital images that are sharp and clear.