DIY or Pro? - Scanning 35mm slides

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18-05-12, 07:20 AM
Spligpoot

DIY or Pro? - Scanning 35mm slides

I need to scan about 300 colour 35mm slides that are around 30 years old. They still seem fine although many seem a little dark and need colour restoring. Maybe this is how they've always been, I don't know.

I'm trying to find out if it's worth scanning them myself with an Epson Perfection V750 Pro A4 Flatbed Scanner 6400 x 9600 dpi that I bought for just £240 or use a professional service that uses a machine like the Nikon Super Coolscan LS 5000 ED.

Can someone please confirm if there will be a big difference in the quality between the two? I know this answer may seem obvious but I posted a few slides as samples to someone offering the service but wasn't impressed by the results. Having said that, it was a few years ago and I think the person was more semi-professional.

The results from the Epson seem okay and at least I have the option of tinkering with the settings but I have no benchmark to compare them with. I'm worried that if I use a service then many may come back unsatisfactory since they need special attention compared with others.

Would it help if I uploaded a couple of results from the Epson? However, if that's okay what resolution is recommended to scan a slide that is to be used to put them on a disc for a member of family to view them on a PC or HDTV? I can scan from 300dpi to 4000dpi.

Thanks very much and hope you can help.
18-05-12, 08:07 AM
wave

hi from what i can see the price varies for the professional service and i dont know the quality. what i can say is that i scanned in some pics last year on on ageing canon scanner and repaired them with photo shop and then used the results for a book that was my father in laws life. so you may get away with your gear.

what i would do is scan in at the best quality do any repairs in photoshop and save a best quality. if you need to put on a cd or show them on a tv then resize to 1920 x 1080
18-05-12, 04:59 PM
graham_c

Hi
Your Epson scanner is a top quality scanner and will do the job to perfection... Graham
22-05-12, 05:59 PM
Ian Howard

Minolta DiMAGE Scan Dual IV

Apologies for hi-jacking this post but being on the same subject...

I have umpteen slides from my 'youth' and also many more that my father took 'eons' ago that I wish to digitise - I bought one of Minolta's DiMAGE Scan Dual IV slide scanners a few years back and sadly have not used it for a good while nor very much anyway, but wish to enquire if this is still up to the task of more modern equipment for 35mm slide scanning?
Does anyone still use this item? It must be over three years since it has been 'fired up'!

Many thanks

Ian
23-05-12, 07:10 AM
wave

I would give it try as you have nothing to loose
02-07-12, 11:32 AM
oldfella

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spligpoot

I need to scan about 300 colour 35mm slides that are around 30 years old. They still seem fine although many seem a little dark and need colour restoring. Maybe this is how they've always been, I don't know.

I'm trying to find out if it's worth scanning them myself with an Epson Perfection V750 Pro A4 Flatbed Scanner 6400 x 9600 dpi that I bought for just £240 or use a professional service that uses a machine like the Nikon Super Coolscan LS 5000 ED.

Can someone please confirm if there will be a big difference in the quality between the two? I know this answer may seem obvious but I posted a few slides as samples to someone offering the service but wasn't impressed by the results. Having said that, it was a few years ago and I think the person was more semi-professional.

The results from the Epson seem okay and at least I have the option of tinkering with the settings but I have no benchmark to compare them with. I'm worried that if I use a service then many may come back unsatisfactory since they need special attention compared with others.

Would it help if I uploaded a couple of results from the Epson? However, if that's okay what resolution is recommended to scan a slide that is to be used to put them on a disc for a member of family to view them on a PC or HDTV? I can scan from 300dpi to 4000dpi.

Thanks very much and hope you can help.

I to use the Epson flatbed scanner. Having the 4870 scanner plus the Epson 520 scanner printer combo and finding them quite acceptible. providing you use JPEG low compression or TIFF. They can be quite short times compared to dedicated film scanners , minolta Nikon for example. I have 2 versions of Minolta but never use them.