Re: Slide Scanner....

In answer to Jim Pallow's question about the necessity to remove the slides from their mounts, almost all scanners have provision to hold mounted 35mm slides. The cardboard mounts cannot be reused once they have been opened, however some plastic ones can be opened and closed more than once.

Should you remove the slide from the mount? The answer is yes, if you are looking for the maximum quality possible. All slides in any mount except glass mounts have a curve to them. Some more than others. The scanners do have some depth of field, however to insure that all parts of the slide are optimally focused, removing the slide from the mount is necessary. Also, the holders some scanners use don't have much more ability to hold an un-mounted slide flat than the cardboard mount. Another reason you may want to scan an un-mounted slide is the mounts always crop some of the slide. It may not make any difference in most images, but the mount may be hiding a sliver of image you really want to see.

A lot of this discussion really relates to how much time do you want to spend scanning. How careful are you willing to be with the process? Mention has been made of how many slides can be scanned at one time. Otherwise known as batch scanning. It works if the slides in the batch are all pretty much the same in color, density, highlight exposure, shadows, curvature of the film, etc. You can help this process if you weed through and try to match the slides in the batch. The problem comes when you just pick the next random 6,8, or 12 slides and scan them together. They all get the same exposure and focus regardless of the image on the slide. Some will be OK, many will not.

The real key to scanning a collection is EDIT, EDIT, EDIT, and then EDIT some more! Be brutal. Unless it's an irreplaceable one of a kind image, if it's out of focus, bad exposure, badly cropped, don't waste your time scanning it.

If you have good images, they should be accorded proper handling. If the image is worth it to you, or something you want to share with others, scanning it individually with exposure and focus set properly is the way to go.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/03/2014 08:17AM by jgunning.