Scanning Slides

[sargan Profile Private message]

This is the precursor to my next ProShow Gold project

For my parents they want me to convert their slide collection to DVD

I have a Dimage Dual Scan IV
I know I need to buy scan software for this to use a W7 64 bit PC

Couple of what may be basic questions:

# Is VueScan still the best choice ... at $90 its not a giveaway so want to get decision right

# Will it allow conversion to positive after scanning ... or do I need something else

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

As far as I know Vuescan is still the best option (that is what I have). Not sure I understand your question about "converting to positive" - slides are a positive image. You may want to check the slides you plan on converting - there have been many cases of old slides being taken over by mold/fungus depending on the environment they have been stored in. Two books you may want to check out are "scanning negatives and slides" and the "vuescan bible" by Steinhoff and published by Rockynook. Nobody that I know is producing dedicated slide scanners any more nor are they writing new drivers for the existing ones (short of VueScan by Ed Hamrick). Nobody is shooting slides anymore (well, almost nobody) so the market for scanners evaporated. People bought scanners, scanned their collection then sold the scanner to the next person in line (ebay etc.) so the market has essentially vanished. There are still scanners that can handle slides/negatives as part of their scanning, but they are not dedicated film/slide scanners.

mikey

[sargan Profile Private message]

What I meant is I have a scanner ... if it scans negatives they will be colour reversal images unless they are converted to positives .. i.e non reversal images.

I know Photoshop can convert negatives to photos by a a click of a button but I no longer have that,

[heckydog Profile Private message]

If a flatbed scanner can do negatives, it will automatically reverse the colors to give you a positive. No need to convert them.

There should be a different setting in the setup for slide scanning, which is already a positive, and a negative. But they would both use the same light source located in the scanner cover, usually. At least that's the case with all the scanners I ever owned.

Joe

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

VueScan handles my Nikon Coolscan 5000 which takes slides and strips of negatives. VueScan can handle both and convert the negatives to positives (although it has been a while since I have done it). Here is a link to the pdf version of the users guide for the latest version of VueScan from Ed Hamrick's site: http://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/vuescan.pdf

mikey

[Marie78 Profile Private message]

Hello

I recently buy VueScan for ou Nikon coolscan IV and we are very happy with it.
We get better quality than with the driver we had before (which needed Windows XP) and works both for positive and négative films. You only have to indicate what you scan.