Some of our less young readers probably remember a time, not so long ago, when cameras were not digital.  These stone aged behemoths of the last century captured your memories on celluloid film, most likely of the 35 mm variety.  Of course, the problem with 35 mm film was that the prints did not maintain their color well.  Older prints were often yellowed, faded, and cracked.  The better way to archive your memories was with slides.  These created much smaller prints, which could be projected onto a screen when held in front a light.  Perfect for boring all of your friends with vacation pictures. 

The problem today, though, is that as this technology was overcome by digital cameras, the tools required to display slides became more difficult to obtain.  Just try finding a good 35 mm slide projector today.  So, if you want to be able to view all of those old memories, rather than just preserving and archiving them in a shoebox, you will need to get them onto your computer.  For that, Ion Audio offers their Slides2PC slide and negative scanner.   Hit the jump for a look.

OK, so let me just acknowledge that this is a bit off our normally beaten path here at JAMM.  This is not exactly a mobile device. But the truth is that I wanted to review it, because I think this is the kind of accessory which could help a lot of our readers.  Even if you have never used a non-digital camera, you had better believe that your parents are well versed in the ways of film cameras and slides.  So, there are probably some slides in your family history.

Crack open the box, and you will find everything you need to start digitizing your slides in minutes.  First is the scanner itself.  The nice thing about this one is the size.  For those of you who are familiar with slides, this is about the size of a lightbox viewer.  Only instead of shining a light to display the image, it shines a light to digitize the image.  In addition, there is also a tray frame to hold your slides in place, and a second one for your negatives.  It also includes all of the documentation and software you will need.

Once you have the box unpacked, you will need to setup the scanner.  This could not be any easier.  Just unpack the included CD-ROM and slip it into the drive.  This will install all of the necessary drivers for the scanner, as well as the Arcsoft PhotoImpressions package.   Now, just grab that USB plug dangling off the back and plug it into your computer.  That’s it.  You are all setup and ready to scan those slides.

OK. The first thing you are going to want to do is put your slides into the scanning frame.  I was frustrated that the frame can only handle three slides at a time.  This means an awful lot of swapping in and out.  Frankly, I suspect most people using a slide scanner are going to be interested in digitizing their entire slide library, which can mean thousands of slides.  Loading them three at a time can be a bit tedious.  It would be nice if the scanner offered a way to load an entire slide carousel at once.  I would happily trade portability (I don’t really travel with slides these days) for usability like that.

Now, this is where that Arcsoft software comes into play.  Go ahead and open it up.  It is really quite easy to use, and select obtain from scanner.  Just choose the appropriate settings and you are ready to go.  You’ll see a new screen which displays the images from your scanner. 

Just insert the frame with the slides into the slot.  Like I said, you will see what the scanner sees as it will be displayed on the screen.  Once the first slide is aligned, hit the capture button to scan the image.  Then, keep sliding the frame until the second slide is displayed and the third.  I was really disappointed by how manual this scanner was.  I had hoped (and maybe not reasonably, I don’t know) for more automation.  It would have been nice if the frame could have been fed into the scanner and the three slides would be automatically captured.  This is not a big problem if you are scanning a few slides at a time.  But I have thousands of slides in a multitude of carousels, all of which I would like to digitize and store.  The thought of scanning each slide manually one at a time is really not particularly appealing.

The real question with the Slides2PC, though, is how the pictures come out on your computer.  So, let’s take a look.  Here is a slide from my childhood which I scanned using the Slides2PC (left).  It is hard to show on the computer, but  I am doing my best to show you the original slides here (right).   The image resembles the original slides, but the colors all look washed out and overexposed.  I may have missed a setting in there, but really, I was not very happy with the quality of the final images.  If the point of scanning your slides is to preserve and archive the images, this is probably not going to cut it.

What I Liked:

• Small and portable
• Easy to setup and use
• Nice software package

What Needs Improvement:

• Only three slides fit in a frame
• No automation, each slide must be scanned individually and manually
• Washed out colors

Where To Buy: Ion Audio

Price: $99.99