Scanning old slides into a computer is a great way to create slide shows on a CD or the adjust image quality using digital software tools before printing the pictures for framing or a photo album. Because slides are small and photographers are likely to have many of them, scanning individual slides can quickly become a tedious chore. A faster method is to use a template to capture more than a dozen scans in a single pass of the scanner.
Instructions
1. Arrange slides in a scanner template, which is a large plastic frame divided into individual squares for holding slides. This frame can hold between 20 and 25 slides, depending on the size of the scanner.
2. Place the template and slides on the flat-bed scanner glass and close the cover.
3. Open the scanner software on the computer by double-clicking the scanner icon or the name of the scanner in the list of programs installed on the computer.
4. Click "Image" or "Image Quality" on the tab at the top of the screen and then click "Resolution."
5. Choose a resolution setting for scanning the slides. The higher the resolution setting, the sharper the scanned images will appear. A resolution of 600x600 is the minimum setting for a quality scan of a 35 ,mm slide and 1200x2400 is preferred for professional-quality printing. At a higher resolution setting, the scanner will take longer to process the slides into digital images on the computer, so use the lowest acceptable resolution setting to increase scanner speed.
6. Press the "Scan" button on the scanner or click the button on the computer screen to scan the slides.
7. Click the "File" tab at the top of the screen and look for an "Automate" or "Automatic" setting in the drop-down menu.
8. Click "Crop and Straighten" ("Automatic Image Adjustment" or similar wording depending on the scanner software). This will automatically separate the multiple scanned slides into individual digital photo files, eliminating the need to click on one scanned slide at a time to separate it from the other images and store in a separate folder. This one step could save up to an hour that would be devoted to separating 20 or more scanned images into individual photo files on the computer.
Tags: resolution setting, into individual, slides into, higher resolution, higher resolution setting, photo files
