Dec 17 2007
Article Review - Copying Slides without Scanning
For the amateur photographer, a good magazine for techniques, tips and great photography is, Australian Photography.
In the November 2007 issue, there was an article on “Copying Transparencies“, which I found pretty interesting, so I thought I’d share it with you.
Slides are a little before my time, but my parents and grandparents have hundreds of slides from family holidays and other occasions. It would be a shame for them to be forgotten and eventually thrown away.
Scanning them in though is a tricky, time consuming process, which requires special equipment and knowledge of how to really use this equipment.
This article does into detail of why scanning is not the ideal method for digitizing your slides - some of the details are a little technical, but this process is involved, so it’s good to have the reasoning explained this way.
Basically, Digital SLRs these days are being made with higher and higher megapixels, and this tends to negate the need for specialty scanning equipment, if you’re not going to be scrutinizing the image down to grain level.
Naturally, there is an argument for greater quality with the dedicated film scanners, but the purpose of this article is to demonstrate that they are no longer the only option.
The article goes on to outline the equipment that you’ll need (such as a good quality 1:1 macro lens), the camera’s settings, and the process - step by step. One thing you will need is a light box. Not everyone has these lying around, but if you’re handy you can probably make one.
The technique is essentially photographing the slides with a digital SLR, and then using photo editing software to make any adjustments.
This is a pretty obvious technique, but as with everything in photography, there are some ‘tricks’ to it, and this article addresses those clearly, and without sounding condescending.
As part of the editing process (they use Photoshop), the article goes through some valuable tools, which I find are standard - adjusting the light level, straightening the image, cropping, and sharpening. For details on these, click here.
Considering that film scanners range from $500 to $6,000, and this article provides a much cheaper alternative, which still produces quality results, it gives us something to think about!
