QA Forum

Question & Answer

We are discussing Surfing through Computers and the Internet
With Nathanael Boehm, Nan Bosler and DCITA

Question:
What is the best way to convert photographic slides to digital images for storge on a CD ?

Answer:
Nathanael - Depending on how many slides you have and the quality/resolution you want your digital images to be, you can either purchase a slide scanner or use a professional scanning service that uses a drum scanner. I can't endorse any specific products, but there are plenty of websites offering independant reviews of various manufacturer's scanners. You can get adapters for flatbed scanners, however I have never heard of anyone getting good results with those - although if you only want to email the photos to friends and family with an output resolution of 500 pixels wide and optimised for Internet transmission then that may be an adequate option.

You have to decide based on how many slides you need scanned and what you want to use the scans for. While drum scanning may produce the highest resolution and quality scans, if you're going to downsample to 72 dpi for emailing then a flatbed adapter may end up being just as good (and possibly cheaper - certainly cheaper if you're thinking about purchasing a drum scanner).

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