Old colour slides

[Kaj Haulrich]

On Tuesday 20 October 2009 19:16:51 Neil Winchurst wrote:
> I have been having a sort out at home and have come across a
>  stack of old family photo slides. When I say old, some of them
>  from more than forty years ago.
> 
> I had forgotten about them. Back in those days the common way to
>  take family photos was by using slide film.
> 
> So my question, what is the best way to transfer such pictures to
>  my computer? I do not have a scanner, but anyway, I do not think
>  that a scanner copes very well with slides. Perhaps there are
>  specialised types.
> 
> There are also some colour prints, incidentally, but not many.

I have scanned hundreds of old color slides with an Epson Perfection 
2400 Photo scanner - using Vuescan and Xsane. The scanner comes with 
a 'place-holder' for slides 5cm x 5cm. Some of those old slides have 
fainted quite some, others not. I scan them with the focus set to 
0.5 mm above the glass plate, being careful to adjust the software 
for film make, such as Kodak, Agfa, Fuji and even an long-forgotten 
Ferraniacolor. Scanning solution about 600 dpi.

When scanned, there are scores of software to enhance fainted, 
blurry and grainy  photos. I prefer Picasa for Linux, but Digikam is 
well suited too. The final results are actually better than the 
originals because I can crop, correct contrast and exposure, un-skew 
and so on and so forth.

Kaj Haulrich.
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