I want to 'save' the old family photos and slides for posterity by scanning them onto CDs via a high spec PC or Mac. These images vary in size from old 'box brownie' snaps of 40mm to virtually A4, different negative sizes and 35mm and half frame slides. I was going to go for a 1200*600 dpi flat bed, but was told that with the negative/slide adaptors they did not perform well. Also that the slide scanners had far higher DPI values and I would loose definition with the flat bed if I enlarged the slides to reasonable sized prints. Am I just too early on the technology bandwagon - should I wait until much higher resolution is avaialable coupled with better data compression?

Cheers

Clive

-- Clive Randall (rancw0@bol.co.uk), February 24, 1999

Answers

I have a Umax flat bed and it does a good job on prints but I got the Transperency adaptor for it and thne results were real bad. I have been trying to gety a report on Microtek scanmaker 5 whic does fil in a seperate compartment glassless but no one has done a review. Look into this type if your neg are varied.

-- Philip Lombardi (Phili1@idt.net), March 04, 1999.

Large-format black & white negs should do reasonably well on a high-quality flatbed, as long as they're not too dense. Forget about color negatives though: The color transformations are so weird that only dedicated film scanners seem to do a decent job. Color transparencies (slides) are a real challenge, due to small size of 35mm film, and the high density of the shadows. Dedicated film scanner or VERY expensive (~$5K) flatbed is the only way to go here. Your best bet would be to get a decent (~$600?) flatbed scanner for the old, large-format B&W negs and any prints you need to scan, and an inexpensive slide/film scanner for the color negs and slides. We've reviewed several units that might work for you in the latter category, including the Oly ES-10, HP PhotoSmart scanner (a new USB-based model is just about to hit the streets), and higher-end units like the Nikon CoolScan III or Minolta Dimage Scan Speed. We're expecting to receive a Minolta Dimage Scan Dual for testing in another week or two, which promises the same software interface of the higher-end Minolta units, but with somewhat reduced operating specs and much lower price...

-- Dave Etchells (hotnews@imaging-resource.com), March 05, 1999.

We have the Nikon coolscan and a traditional HP flatbed with a transparency adapter and believe it or not the both put out almost equal quality and it is very good.

I put 10-20 slides on the flat bed, prescan, then cut each one out and scan them or just use the coolscan one by one.

The quality is easily good enough to paste into a powerpoint talk and project on auditorium screens 10-30 feet high.

-- peter j evans (peterjevans@msn.com), March 11, 1999.

Interesting responses. Logic tells me that even a 1200 optical dpi flatbed scanning slides (roughly 2 inches square) through glass should not be anything like as good as a dedicated (and far more expensive) slide scanner. I guess until you try it you do not know though!

-- Clive Randall (rancw)@bol.co.uk), March 11, 1999.