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How to Copy 35mm Slides to a Computer

Do you have trays and trays of 35 mm slides sitting around your home from years of shooting? If so you may want to consider scanning them into your computer. By digitizing your archive of slide images, you can organize them into different albums, create online galleries for family to view, or if you have some very interesting or unique images you may be able to sell them through stock photo agencies. There are two ways of converting slides to digital files. One is to have a retail photo lab do it for you, the other is purchase or rent a scanner and do it yourself. Depending on the number of slides you have and the amount of time you have to commit to the task will help you decide which is the best route to take.

Things You'll Need

Slides to scan
Anti-static cloth
Scanner (bulk loader optional)
Desktop or laptop computer with scanner software loaded

Instructions

- 1
  Turn on the power to your computer and scanner. Using the software included with the scanner, install it on your computer and set the scanner to scan slides. Create and name folders where your slides will be saved.
- 2
  Organize your slides to match the folders you have created, either by date or subject or other title.
- 3
  Clean the slides you are about to scan by gently using a anti-static cloth that will remove any dust and other debris off of the slide and help prevent dust collecting on them during the scanning process.
- 4
  Load you slides into either the carrier tray, which usually holds four at a time, or the bulk loader if your scanner has one. Start the scan.
- 5
  Save the scanned slides into the correct folders and save the new digital files as TIFF files with no compression. Using this file format will retain as much data as possible. The file size will be larger than the same file saved as a JPEG, and you use this file your original file from which you can do all your editing, saving the edited files as JPEGs.

Photography