USB Slide Scanner

Although taking pictures with digital cameras is easy, it takes much of the fun out of the photographic experience.  Now there is a new product that bridges the gap between taking 35mm pictures and digitizing them and saving it on your computer's hard drive.   It's called a usb slide scanner. 

What a usb slide scanner does is scan in 35 mm negatives and mount or unmounts slides to store the image image as a digital file.  The usb slide scanner is a hardware device that connects via a usb cord to your computer.  There is also software that comes with the scanner which is a typical plug and play.   If you do not have a computer at all or on hand you can also save to a flash drive or a sd memory card. 

Using the usb slide scanner is a very easy operation.  You can simply drag and drop pictures and only takes a few seconds for each one.  The picture quality allowed is awesome because it is over 5 megapixels and a resolution of 3600 dpi interpolation.  So the slide scanner can surpass the highest quality digital camera's resolution and therefore quality.

Many of the top digital camera makers produce usb slide scanners.  There are various sizes and designs to choose from.  For the sake of quality it is best to go with a name you heard of so shoot for a slide scanner made by Nikon, Epson, Canon or HP. 

Slide scanners vary greatly in price between $200 to $2000 and depends on the quality you are looking to get.  As time goes on, the prices for the high quality scanners will drop just like the prices have significantly dropped with computers.  Of course the quality will differ and as a general rule of thumb will go higher as the price goes up.  That's why you have to do your homework and match up the quality and price that's perfect for you.  There are many resources on the internet like Amazon, epinions and cnet that can greatly aide in your purchasing decision. 

Canon currently has a great scanner on the market which utilizes modern day software.  The great thing about the software is that can easily and seamlessly correct rotation, color, brightness, curves and histograms.  You can also change media type, scanning resolution, color depth, dust removal level, cropping, exposure and focus.

Epson is also big into the usb slide scanner market with various versions of their on film scanner.  They offer many choices for both the value based consumer to the quality seeking shopper. 

The great thing about usb slide scanners is you can completely restore old photos provided that you still have the negatives.  So a picture that you loved that has diminished in quality comes to life again.  So you don't have to overly worry about dust, finger prints or scratches because the awesome software will fix it.