Slide Scanning
By
Jun 24, 2009 - 12:20:30 PM
About thirty-five to forty years ago, 35mm slides
were quite popular. Families documented their vacations and special
occasions with series of slides, businesses used slide shows for
important presentations, and students learned about faraway places and
science from slide shows. Each slide was placed, in order and in the
correct orientation, into the slide carousel, and the show began.
Image
technology has come a long way since the 60’s and 70’s. PowerPoint
presentations, digital cameras, and photographs on CD’s and DVD’s are
used for displaying pictures and presentations. Many people have boxes
and cases full of old 35mm slides that sit gathering dust because
viewing the slides is too cumbersome or the slide projector is broken.
Fortunately, slides can now be converted to a digital format onto CD’s
and DVD’s for easy storage and viewing with
slide scanning.
You
can use a flatbed scanner or a film scanner to scan your slides. Film
scanners can range in price from $300 to over $1,000, but they produce
a higher quality reproduction. Some of the scanner features you need to
consider before making a purchase are resolution, DPI, PPI, dynamic
range, and bit depth.
The resolution
of a scanned image is the measurement of how sharp, or clear, the
scanned image is. The DPI, or dots per inch, is the measurement of the
number of image dots a printer is capable of printing into 2.54cm (one
linear inch) of space. A higher DPI typically results in a higher
resolution. Pixel, a combination of the words “picture” and “element,”
is a term that refers to the smallest unit of an image. This is
typically a color dot. The number of pixels a scanner supports
(megapixels) and the size of the image produced determine the PPI, or
pixels per inch. As the size of an image increases, the PPI decreases.
Scanners with higher megapixels produce images with higher resolution.
Dynamic range refers to the capability of distinguishing levels of
brightness in an image. A low dynamic range results in a blurry,
undefined image, and a high dynamic range produces a sharp, crisp
image. Bit depth, or color depth, is the measurement of how many bits,
or single units of information, are used to create each pixel in a
digital image. Higher bit depths result in brighter and deeper image
colors.
There are some drawbacks to do-it-yourself
slide scanning.
As mentioned previously, the cost of a quality scanner may be
prohibitive. You may also end up with a scanner that is difficult to
operate or does not perform as you expected. Common problems of
scanning slides at home or at your business are damage from
fingerprints, choosing the appropriate settings on the scanner, and
difficulty producing pictures without scratches and other unsightly
marks. Slide scanning can also be a very time-consuming.
For an easier approach to scanning slides, try a professional
photography business that offers this service. Professional slide
scanning services use top of the line scanners, and the scanned images
are clear and blemish-free. You won’t need to bother with purchasing
special equipment to scan your slides, and reputable scanning services
guarantee their work. Your slide scanning project will be completed in
no time!
