Lab Suggestions for Scanning Slides

[RobMac]

I was wondering if anyone has any experience using photo processing labs for slide scanning? I've got thousand of slides that I'd like to digitize and do that with a flat-bed or film scanner seems as if it would take years.

If anyones gone this route and are happy with the results, I'd be interested in which company you used.

Many thanks in advance!

[drg]

It's time or money to scan slides.

Choose the slides you most want and do them first. You might even want to invest in a small light box and a loupe to review them prior to scanning.

If you purchase a scanner, try to get a two or three carriers if you really are going to do lots of work. That way you can have them loaded and ready to go and keep the scanner and computer humming!

Dust reduction software is vital too save even more time later. Don't over scan the image just for digitization. Much beyond 2400dpi and you will only be scanning film grain! The overscan or higher dpi you may need for the unusual or rare photograph where you want to have higher Dmax via software. You can scan at a lower dpi, say 1200, just to get the images into the computer for review, and scan the few (usually very few) that need big files for printing or editing.

Best of luck and welcome to Photography Review. Post some of what you scan if you would like!

[RobMac]

Thanks drg,

Here's a couple of images that I scanned myself on a flatbed. They look OK when viewing on a webpage but if I print them using anything larger than a 5x7, the detail just goes away. That's why think I've got to go the professional route to get the results I'd like to see.