At 8/21/2009 09:47, you wrote: >Hi Skipp, > >For our Christmas present to us (my wife and myself), we purchased a Cannon >CanoScan 8800F flatbed scanner. Works really well, and has a USB interface >to our computer. There are buttons on the scanner that allows you to scan >documents and convert to either color or black & white pdf's. > >It also comes with ArcSoft photo Studio 5 software which allows one to copy >35 mm slides and import them to jpeg's. With a 35 mm library of well over >1,000 slides, I'm converting them to files to save for future viewing.
A bit off topic, but as someone who's just wrapping up a 1000+ slide scanning project, I'd recommend a scanner with good dust removal. I use the Epson 4870 which has "ICE". I forget what "ICE" stands for, but it's a hardware-based dust removal system that scans the slides with an infrared lamp. The idea is that infrared light will pass through the emulsion fairly evenly regardless of the image on the negative/slide, so that all that shows up is the dirt & dust. The software then uses this as a mask for removing all the specs. Software only-based dust removal has to "guess" as to what's dust, & sometimes gets it wrong. The only caveat with ICE is that it doesn't work well on certain films, reportedly Kodachrome. I've used it on 95% of my slides & it does well on most of them; the ones that end up being a problem only show some very subtle blotchiness in dark uniform areas, kind of like what you get when you convert a picture to 256 colors without dithering. I suspect those were Kodachrome slides. Still a lot less trouble than having to manually PhotoShop out all the dust. The spec "DMax" is also important: it's dynamic range for scanners. To catch the full range of luminance in a 35mm slide you really need a DMax close to 4.0. I think my 4870 is around 3.8. Bob NO6B
