On Feb 13, 2006, at 1:17 PM, Rodger Whitlock wrote: > > Somewhere I've read (cue "uh-oh") that to scan slides or negatives > properly, you need > special equipment, not just an attachment to a consumer-grade flatbed > scanner. > > Because film photography is extremely rapidly becoming obsolete (several companies have announced that they will no longer make any new film cameras and one or two are getting out of the camera business altogether, and film developers are going out of business all over the country sooner than they expected), companies that make scanners are trying to make some of their flatbeds as good as dedicated (and very expensive) slide scanners for a whole lot less $$. Apparently they're almost there. (I think they want to get all of us who have an archive of film photos and slides so that we can convert them all to digital format before film photography and developing is completely obsolete, and their scanners become obsolete as well.) If you can find someone who has, for example, an Epson Perfection 4990 or a Canon 9950F, you can get slides or film scanned to very near the quality of some of the professional film scanners with a machine that is only 1/3 the price. (Go through some good reviews of both of these, such as can be found at <http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/scanners_page.htm> to see how good they're getting.) I'm almost there about getting one of these scanners myself. --Lee Poulsen Pasadena, California, USDA Zone 10a