Scanning Slides and Negatives

[Graham Todd]

On Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:55:12 -0800
NoOp <glgxg at sbcglobal.net> uttered these words:

> Per:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/hplip/+bug/200166
> [HP PhotoSmart C8100: I cannot select film/slide scanning in XSane]
> this is marked as "Won't Fix"
> Not sure why, but the reporter 'Till Kamppeter' is very well known for
> Ubuntu printer/printer-driver support. So, if he couldn't get it
> changed, doesn't look good.

I came across this problem, so in the end I had a 'negative scanner'
bought for me one Christmas.  A similar item can be found on Buy.com,
and here is the link:

http://www.buy.com/prod/svp-fs-1000-digital-film-scanner-35mm-negative-films-slides-scanner/q/loc/101/212595483.html

Similar ones made by SVP can be found on Amazon and eBay

I was provided with a scanner with my laptop that ran WinXP, together
with a negative tray, and it worked with older negatives I tested it
with, but I could not get any Linux distribution to provide anything but
grey-to-black-and-white scans, and then after going through a couple of
(borrowed) scanners which were not HP, I gave up.  There does seem to
be a software issue here - working with WinXP but not Linux.

The 'negative scanner' might be an expensive alternative for you, but
you can save the images in JPEG or TIFF formats, and it shows as an
external usb device in Ubuntu.  Very easy and convenient to use.

As the software developers are not going to fix this issue in Linux, it
seems a digital/negative scanner is the only way to rescue old
negatives and slides using Ubuntu, if a tad expensive.

-- 
Graham Todd