Quote:
Originally Posted by cigtoxdoc
I have decided it is finally tiime to start scanning thousand of slides I have taken over the years as well as some of my late Mom's that have been proof of the longevity of Kodachromes; however, new scanners compatible with Linux-based OS (even some that use Vuescan) are apparenlty not available. I would like to know what works, even if it requires the purchase of used equipment.
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I know this isn't what you asked for, but if this is a one-time thing (that is, you're going to scan this batch of slides and not take more slide pictures), it might be cheaper/easier to just talk to your local photo shop. Ask if they have a scanning service, or check out one online, like this:
http://www.scancafe.com/
Yes, they're $0.22 per slide. You can find some cheap slide scanners with USB interfaces that will *PROBABLY* work with Linux:
http://www.adorama.com/ICDP8200ISE.html
No auto-feed, but inexpensive. Even IF you find one used, you're probably looking at near $1000 for the unit itself. And there's more math to consider. Let's say you have 3,000 slides to scan (not unreasonable). The PREVIEW rate for a modern scanner is 8 seconds. Not including time to switch slides, that's over 6.5 hours...for just PREVIEWS, not a scan that anyone would be happy with. To adjust things, switch slides, and save files you'd probably be looking at 10 minutes per slide; or
three months, at 40 hours per week, to crank through them all. How much is your time worth???
And if you want to save files as PSD's or some other format suitable for archival/printing, you're going to want high resolution, lossless. So...figure about 200GB, or 50 DVD's. Which will ALSO take about ten minutes each to burn, or another 8 hours (full working day). Then you'll have to bear in mind that CD's/DVD's weren't designed to have long-term data storage, so have fun making duplicate sets if you want to the pictures to last for another generation. Same with USB flash or external hard drives...you will have to back up that data too.
For me, it'd be worth my time just to send a box to a professional scanning service, and get it all back in the mail.