What resolution is recommended for a person who just wants to buy a scanner to scan regular old 35mm pictures?

Question

I want to scan and print some pictures to give to a family member. But I want them to be of good quality so they can actually see and enjoy the pictures. What kind of scanner do I need? Any brands recommended, or what resolution do I need? I already have a printer, so I just need the scanner.

Answer 1

I scan my photos in 150dpi, and they're quite big. You can get scanners quite cheap nowadays, and they work quite good. Lexmark and Cannon are the leaders. Epson is good, although you "get what you pay for" in any brand/industry.

Answer 2

There are quite a few scanners, though to make the choice, you have to balance out things like performance capability, cost, and the like, as well as how many slides you're likely to want to scan and what sort of prints you intend to make. Although a dedicated scanner is usually best for quality, if you don't have too many slides, and aren't looking for photographic competition quality output, a decent flatbed with transparency capability is probably a better option. My current scanner is the Epson 4990 Photo, a flatbed with a range of holders for film and transparency, from 35mm to medium format rollfilm to 5x4 and larger. Dedicated film scanners may outdo it for 35mm performance, but the quality difference is not great, and the price difference is. It can do eight (mounted) slides at a time. I recently scanned approximately 1000 slides from my collection, a task which took about three weeks, doing about 4 dozen slides a day. The supplied Epson software is fairly good, and will scan in batches. For higher quality scans, I use Vuescan as the scanner driver instead, which is not so nifty in batching, but very good for scan quality. I use the Epson-scanned images as my main catalogue and for standard-sized prints, and if a particular slide merits a bigger print with better scan quality, I just re-scan it with Vuescan. I use Picasa to catalogue the scans and create 'contact' sheets. The Epson 4990 is at the higher end of the price range for flatbeds, at around £300 new, but it's worth the money. The V series also get good writeups.

Answer 3

It's hard to buy a bad scanner today.... I actually got a GREAT Epson with an attachment for 35mm negatives.... works awesome....can scan several pictures at once and software automagically separates them into different files for you.... pretty nice... I'd give you the model but I'm sure there's newer out there.