Got My Dad's Old Slides Computerized

[AngliaGT]

My Dad took a lot of color slides in the '40's,'50's & '60's.
I'd like to share them,if anyone's interested.
Let's see if this works.......

Doesn't work.I downloaded them from a flash drive.
How do I access them so that I can post them?

 

[NutmegCT]

Doug - if there's a lot of slides, it's easier if you just upload them all to a public site like Flickr. Then just post a link to the Flickr page on a BCF post.

You can upload one or two to BCF if the filesize isn't too big, but that's not a good idea for a big bunch of images.

Tom M.

 

[mikephillips]

So was the experience getting them digitized easy and do you have an approximate per slide cost you can share?? My grandmother was a big slide person in that same time period, she traveled all over the world during summer breaks from teaching. She then used them for programs to local groups about things she'd seen and done. Don't want to lose them, yet the storage and not having an easy way to look at them is a problem. So, any advice or recommendations??

 

[Mickey Richaud]

So was the experience getting them digitized easy and do you have an approximate per slide cost you can share?? My grandmother was a big slide person in that same time period, she traveled all over the world during summer breaks from teaching. She then used them for programs to local groups about things she'd seen and done. Don't want to lose them, yet the storage and not having an easy way to look at them is a problem. So, any advice or recommendations??

I bought an Epson "Perfection V600" scanner that not only scans photos, but also negatives and slides. It will also enhance faded pics - does a great job. It has a tray that holds up to four slides at a time. A bit time consuming, but otherwise fine. They're downloaded onto your computer and you've plenty of options from there. $230 on Amazon.

 

[NutmegCT]

Mike, you might also want to PM Brooklands, who is into 35mm scanning. Very time consuming, so many folks opt for sending the slides to a professional shop. Shop returns the originals, and the digitized files are on CD, USB stick, etc.

 

[DrEntropy]

Just got the same Epson scanner as Brer Mick. Big improvement over the technology of a decade ago, resolution is superb also.
"Time consuming" is kinda subjective, our first scanner only did 35mm and took four times as long to scan one frame. The Epson does four in that same time and will also do medium format.

35mm Kodachrome scan (didn't do a good job cleaning it!):

Cleaned up in GIMP software:

 

[AngliaGT]

A guy in California did them for me.It's amazing just how
bright the colors still are.Lots of cool stuff there!

 

[mikephillips]

Well thanks guys, you've given me some options and things to think about. I'm already scanning old family photos so my brothers and nieces can all have copies, but what I have won't do slides. Time consuming is subjective, much of mine is in identifying who is in what photo, labeling them and creating lists to go with them. Hopefully someone in the future will appreciate the effort...

 

[NutmegCT]

Mike - that's exactly what I meant about "time consuming". The scanning accuracy, hardware, and software is better and faster than it was years ago, but you still have to identify each image and enter a text description. Neighbor sent over 1000 35mm slides to a professional for scanning. Saved him a ton of scanning time - but when he got the originals and digital copies back, he spent months doing all the "brain" work. Realized he could have done it with a $75 scanner, doing the "brain work" at the same time.

 

[Basil]

I've been slowly scanning all our old prints, slides, and in some cases negatives over the past couple of years. I thought I was gettig close to the end. However, today we decided to clean out the spare bedroom's walk-in closet. I had some drawers built in when I customized the closet several years ago. I opened one of the drawers and couldn't believe my eyes! We had stuffed hundreds of prints, slides, etc., in that drawer then forgot about them! Oh well, looks like I have a lot more scanning to do than I thought!

 

[mikephillips]

But you know, while some won't care about them 100 years from now there will be family members who will appreciate the time and effort it took. And say, "Too bad he didn't have the magic whizz bang machine we have now to do this stuff"....

 

[DavidApp]

Just think you have prints and negatives from 50 years ago and photos you took a few years ago that are on a HD that crashed and you have no backup so they are gone.

David

 

[NutmegCT]

Good point David. Also, in a few decades, will people even know what to do with various digital file formats and media?

I'm thinking audio as well as image/video -

• Uncompressed audio formats, such as WAV, AIFF, AU or raw header-less PCM;
• Formats with lossless compression, such as FLAC, Monkey's Audio (filename extension .ape), WavPack (filename extension .wv), TTA, ATRAC Advanced Lossless, ALAC (filename extension .m4a), MPEG-4 SLS, MPEG-4 ALS, MPEG-4 DST, Windows Media Audio Lossless (WMA Lossless), and Shorten (SHN).
• Formats with lossy compression, such as Opus, MP3, Vorbis, Musepack, AAC, ATRAC and Windows Media Audio Lossy (WMA lossy).
• MP4, MOV, WMV, GIF, JPG, OGG, etc.

(I remember when the 1980s cp/m computers all had different disk formats; to use a Kaypro disk on an Osborne, you had to use an intermediary reader like MediaMaster.)

The mind boggles!

 

[mikephillips]

I do have some stuff digital since that's the formats I've found. Birth notices, death notices, marriages and so on that I've put on flash drives for my brothers. The photos I'm copying onto photo paper with a copier designed for that, for the very reason of loss of a hard drive or just someone forgetting where they were as well as format changes. Saw a thing online at one point were someone asked the question of why do "old" people keep photos and letters and stuff when they can keep them on Facebook or Instagram or other things like that. I do wonder how much family history will be lost by not having actual possession of these things, not to mention there is something to holding the actual piece of paper that a long gone ancestor touched and wrote on.

And speaking of written records, I at one point fount the death notice for a great great grandfather who died in the late 1800s. seems he was judging a shooting contest where they were shooting at a distant tree and the bullets had to pass by trees closely on each side. He'd moved off to the side to see better and collected one that ricocheted off one of the trees in the chest. The newspaper story was nearly a page long with details of contestants trying to save him, the wagon ride to a doctor and on and on. Made today's obituaries look small and dry in comparison.

 

[DrEntropy]

I've long maintained there's a lot to be said for being able to hold a document in-hand. The tactile sensation of reading a book for instance. Actual photographs, legal documents, et al. Pencil and paper are a solid backup system. Or p'raps cuneiform?

One good EMP and all the digital storage is evaporated. No matter the media, retrieval would be problematic. Anybody have a Beta deck for playback?

 

[NutmegCT]

Beta deck - check.
3-speed multi-channel tape system - check.
Osborne I computer - check.
Tandy Model 100 laptop - check.

 

[Basil]

Beta deck - check.
3-speed multi-channel tape system - check.
Osborne I computer - check.
Tandy Model 100 laptop - check.

Stone tablet - check

 

[NutmegCT]

hey! never know when you might need some old tech!

Here I'm using my tablet to translate cuneiform into Linear B:

 

[JPSmit]

Looks like Covid hair.