I have color slides I need to get on my pc. I have a flatbed scanner. Do I need to do somethig special or have special software to do what I want ??
I'm haveing no luck. I do get the pic to pc but it is poor quality. Help !!
My op sys is XP,,pent 3,,447 mhz,,320 mb ram,,Gateway desktop 450.Ordinary flatbed scanners work by reflection, that is there is a lamp inside the scanner that shines white light on the thing you are scanning and then the sensor in the scanner picks up the light reflected back off the object.

That is how we see photos, printed sheets of paper when we look at them.

However slides, or "transparencies" as they used to be called, are meant to be viewed by having light shone through them. Photo film negatives are used like that too.

So trying to scan a slide by reflected light is going to produce dull LIFELESS images where you can see any dust on the slide really well. Also, you have to remember that a 35 mm slide is very small and the scanned image is not going to have a lot of pixels.

Some flatbed scanners have optional negative/slide attachments with a lamp in them which shine a light through the slide or negative. The scanner's internal lamp is disabled during transparency scanning. This can give rather better results. But the best results come from a proper slide scanner.

If your flatbed scanner does not have a slide attachment you would have to either buy one that does, or better, get a proper slide scanner.


do check on the scanner manual/website to see if it support slide scanning, if yes you may get what you want by just CHANGING a few setting at the scanner software

emmm.... giving your computer spec did not help us to solve this problem better, giving your scanner name seem more relatedwoud putting a piece of white paper above the sheet help or is it the reflective qu\lity of the paper thats the problem?A mirror might be better. The trouble is, slides have a glossy (SHINY) front surface which reflects light, and shows up EVERY single particle of dust, which is another reason why trying to scan them in a reflected-light scanner is a bad idea.>>Here's<< a possible d.i.y. solution.Here's a slide the guy scanned at 600 dpi using the gizmo described. Some post processing was needed. Notice the dust particles & general fuzzy APPEARANCE. Still not bad for a free gizmo he made himself. Trouble is, 35mm slides are pretty tiny.

If you've still got the slide projector, use it and take a picture with a digital camera of each slide shining on the wall. Seems like it would be faster and easier.