Printing old dias - a kick in the ...

[Steinar]

If you are like me, having a suitcase of old dias on the attic, just waiting for that perfect day to do something about them.. I hereby direct a kick in the â?¦

Seriouslyâ?¦ or, not that seriously.. I thought I should share how I after years of delaying it, finally did something about them. It amazed me how cheap and easy it was to get the old pictures down on paper ready for album. Also, itâ??s not that boring as you may think.. glancing back on the good old days.

First I brewed up a big can of coffee.
Then it was time to set up the scanner and computer. Scanner needs to have a â??dias functionâ?? with a frame to place them in, mine was less expensive than I though it would be and worked great. I used 400dsi, making each picture about 2.5mb. Would probably use 300dsi if I should start over again..
After that it was just a matter of feeding the scanner with dias, I used ethanol to clean the dias, before placing them on the scanner. It removes stains/dust and does not leave any residue. Took me one hour for each cassette, about 2min pr. picture. (just not smoke while doung this!)

Having them all on the disk, I spend twice as much time editing. You could use Photoshop, but I prefer Paint Shop Pro on this type of editing.
-crop them into the right size with the crop function. You will probably have to cut away a little on top and bottom.
-then find the setting that makes the pictureâ??s colors best in a function called â??one botton fixâ?? or something like that. If you are as lazy as me, this setting can then be used on all pictures by just one click on the function. Itâ??s amazing how much you can improve the colour by doing this..
-then, it was dust removing time.. There is a â??dust remover filterâ?? I first ran them all trough, this removes the smallest â??stuffâ??. But most is still there, so you may drop this step. The visible dust can easily be removed the scratch remover tool. Shaped as a scraper.
-Then I uploaded the pictures on the internet for developing, four days later they arrived for about 75% less than what used to pay in the â??analogâ?? days.. Very happy with the result, now the future generations have something to laugh at also


Hope it was useful for some of you guys typing this down, the most difficult part about it is not to delay it another year or two

[DaveinTN]

Steinar,

I'm in the middle of a similar project. My father (87) went into a nursing home several months ago and has gotten pretty sick of watching tv. Over the objections of my mother and brother, I had them send me boxes and boxes of color slides that were taken over the course of 30+ years.

My father was a photo nut (used a 35mm Leica and 64asa slide film) and took pictures of anyone or anything who got to close.

I'm scanning the slides with a Canon 4400 set at 4800 dpi. Minor editing and cropping the scanned slides is being done with Photoshop 7. I'll eventually put them in a Toshiba 4 GB thumb drive. Then, my father will be able to plug in his slides and look at them any time he wishes. Memories are a lot better than TV.

I can't believe how many photos he took of my brother and me.....

Keep up the good work!

Dave in TN.

[Steinar]

Good luck with the work Dave! Very kind of you to do that for your father, looking at old pictures sure brings out many memories..


It was one of those things I have been delaying for years, thinking that it would be just as darn protracted as fitting them into the slides in the first place. But it was not that bad With the editing, I spent between two-three hours pr kasette of 30 slides.

Dave, currious to know. Is your scanner a 'dias scanner'? For all I know.. regular scanners work just as well...