If you read my recent post you know I just finished a massive slide scanning project. I’ll now help you get started on your own project by giving you tips and some product recommendations to get you going.
1. Collect
Get all your slides together and consolidate to one location, in as few boxes as necessary. Most likely when your slides were developed they came in small containers, plastic and/or cardboard. I’ll be suggesting a better storage solution for final storage but for now if you have your slides in those types of containers, that’s great. Just get them all together, lined up and ready to scan.
2. Tools
You gathered your slides, now get your scanning gear together. You’ll need the following:
- Scanner that has adapters for slides and negatives. Seems obvious, but some scanners do not have that feature. Make sure yours does if not then you’ll have to buy or borrow a scanner that does have these features. My personal preference is an Epson scanner.
- Cloth for cleaning scanner bed and slides. You can purchase a specialty cloth at a photography store or use a silk chamois that is used for wiping prescription eyeglasses clean. I found the silk chamois worked better for me and you can pick one up anywhere that sells eyeglasses. You’re going to want to eliminate as much dust ahead time so you’re not fixing it after with software – a time consuming process.
- The MUST purchase, the 35mm Slide Storage System from one of my favorite stores, Archival Methods. You will love this archival quality, storage solution for your slides. It will aide in how you name and organize your scanned files on your computer. I HIGHLY recommend it. .
- Lastly, make sure you have software loaded on your computer that talks to your scanner. Do a test run before you get going. I installed a plugin in Photoshop that controls my Epson scanner but my scanner also came with its own stand alone software. Scanners will come with software or you can look into acquiring another piece of software such as VueScan. I’ve never tried VueScan but it seems to get good reviews and probably has a few more features than you’re included software. The standard version is $39.95 and the professional version is $79.95. Available for Macs and PCs.
Once you’re all set up, my next post will get you scanning away!
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