Slides
Although the image quality of slides and film negatives is very high, these technologies can be a bit unwieldy in today's digital world. Fortunately, you can scan both negative and positive transparencies using an ordinary flatbed scanner, and save your images at a high resolution. Images scanned from high-quality transparencies (such as slides and negatives) will generally be just as good as digitally captured images, if not better. You can scan your negatives and slides in the same amount of time it takes to scan a piece of paper, and you'll be pleased with the results.
Instructions
1. If you have a slide/negative attachment for your scanner, load the slides and/or negatives into the attachment. There will be slots corresponding to the sizes of slides or negatives; simply place the materials in the appropriate slots. Fit the attachment inside the scanner.
2. If you do not have an attachment, or can't find it, simply arrange the materials to be scanned on the scanner's flatbed. The attachment keeps the scanned materials lined up and squared, but it is not necessary.
3. Close the scanner and turn it on. Your computer should recognize the presence of an external device, and the scanning software should appear.
4. In the scanning software window, select "Positive Transparency" as the source type for scanning slides, and "Negative Transparency" for scanning negatives. Even if you have loaded both slides and negatives into the scanner together, you will have to scan the different types separately.
5. Set the image resolution (also known as dpi or ppi) to the highest number available on the menu. This will create a relatively large file size, but you can always reduce the resolution later to save space.
6. Click "Overview" or "Prescan" to get an image of everything on the scanner bed. If you have both negatives and slides loaded, select only the transparency type you wish to scan first. If you don't have a photo-manipulation program, such as Adobe Photoshop, select each image individually, and scan them one at a time. This will take more time, but your images will scan as individual files, ready to be printed, saved or emailed.
7. Click "Scan," and save your images. If you have Photoshop, and intend to work on the images more later, save them as ".psd" files. If you intend to have the images professionally printed, save them as ".tiff" files. For emailing and general use, save them as ".jpeg" files. The JPEG file format compresses the image, reducing file size and quality.
Tags: save them, your images, file size, later save, negatives into, negatives slides
