Scanning 35mm Slides To Digital: Do It Yourself Vs Using A Scanning Service

When we're planning our list of chores, scanning old 35mm slides to digital is not usually high on our list, though perhaps it ought to be

. The majority of us either took or inherited a pile of old 35mm slides that we put away in our garage or attic. Some years ago, taking slides was something just about every family did. I remember enjoying slide shows of family vacations to Yosemite and Grand Teton when I was a child; those big screens and slide carousels were the original way of photo sharing.

But now for many of us, those slides lie long-forgotten, gathering dust, fading away and perhaps even getting moldy. Eventually slides may darken and acquire a bluish haze or fade color and get a pinkish tone. It would be unfortunate to allow that to occur and if you don't do anything they could eventually be un-viewable. Luckily, scanning old 35mm slides, negatives and paper pictures they will have a new lease on life and will be protected from more damage, and you can show them off to your children and grandchildren.

Scanning 35mm Slides On Your Own

Now that you understand that scanning 35mm slides is critical to their preservation, however, doing it yourself vs sending them out is a dilemma. Supposing you've got just 500-600 35mm slides and need good quality images, a scanner will be necessary. A high quality flatbed scanner is about $200. Pro-grade slide and negative scanners run over 1500 dollars. That stings! Plus, what do you do when your slides are fading or the colors have changed, or they're scratched? You may discover that all of your images require Photoshopping to return them to their original state. This involves an additional expenditure for image editing software (Photoshop is costly at about $600+) and you need to know how to make the corrections -- plus be ready to spend about 30-40 hours.

How Using a Slide Scanning Service Makes the Process Easy

The use of a slide scanning service will most definitely save you from many hours of tedium and possibly save you money as well. Along with 35mm slide scanning to digital format, services usually scan photo prints and negatives. Basically you only need to gather your photos and slides and ship them in a box to the photo service. One of the service components is cleaning images of dust/smears and touching up minor flaws. Once theyve converted the 35mm slides and images to digital, they will even do things like cropping, red-eye removal and make color corrections, getting your pictures as close to the original state as possible. Just imagine, those old photos of your mother or grandmother in her pink poodle skirt will have renewed color and vibrancy!

Your Images Will Be Available on DVD

Once the scanning of your 35mm slides is completed your original slides will be returned to you along with a DVD(s) of your newly digitized photos. Now you can start to have some fun with them. Apart from knowing your old photos will be preserved, you will now be able to share them on DVD with family and friends, design a book of your family history, make a web gallery to enjoy on line and much more.

While scanning 35mm slides to digital format does take a bit of effort, you will be assured that your old family pictures will have an extended life, safe from the deterioration of time.

by: Val Goettsch

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