Special Concerns in Scanning Slides

Reader Sherry Gregory writes: We have slides of our children and vacations from the sixties through the eighties that we would love to transfer to DVD so we could view these on our TV or computer. Is this something a novice (me) could do? Whatever instructions, suggestions, or advice you have would be most appreciated.

If you're comfortable scanning photographic prints, you should have no trouble scanning slides. However, you will need one piece of special hardware.

If you've got a standard flatbed scanner, you might notice that when you try to scan slides, they come out dark to the point where they're impossible to make out. This is because slides are transparent and require a backlight to make out (just like when you display them on a slide projector). Scanners have the same issues when trying to make out a slide, and they need a light source on the opposite side of the slide (that is, the lid) in order to scan properly.

Some scanners, like the HP Scanjet 4890, support negative and slide scanning out of the box. Other scanners have add-on products (try searching for "transparency adapter" for your model scanner), like the HP Scanjet 3500 series, that can provide the backlighting needed. If you're into hacking together a cheap solution, some people have reported excellent results by cobbling together a couple of sheets of ultra-white paper to reflect the scanner's primary light source enough to provide a backlight on the slide, but your results may be highly variable. (No matter what method you use, make sure you set the scanning software to expect transparencies or slides.)

Your other option would be a specialized slide scanner, which has a little slot for the slide or several at once. Some even have auto-feeders to scan several dozen in a row, but reviews are often short of glowing due to frequent jams. Some of these scanners can be very expensive, too, but the Plustek OpticFilm 7200 is reasonably priced.

Once you've scanned the slides, you can burn them to disc or make slideshows, just as you would any digital pictures. Most photo album software and disc burning software lets you create these easily.