We spent 46 hours on research, videography, and editing, to review the top options for this wiki. Got boxes of slides in the attic that you never look at because, well, who has a slide projector these days? Convert all your old media into a more easily viewable and shareable format with one of these scanners that can convert slides, negatives and even movie film stills into digital images that you can upload to the web, print out, or display on a digital photo frame. When users buy our independently chosen editorial picks, we may earn commissions to support our work. We spent 46 hours on research, videography, and editing, to review the top options for this wiki.
Got boxes of slides in the attic that you never look at because, well, who has a slide projector these days? Convert all your old media into a more easily viewable and shareable format with one of these scanners that can convert slides, negatives and even movie film stills into digital images that you can upload to the web, print out, or display on a digital photo frame. When users buy our independently chosen editorial picks, we may earn commissions to support our work.
The 21st century is a unique turning point for photographers and people who love capturing every moment on a camera. Several generations of photo lovers currently co-exist. The older generation used physical film to record their images, which were later viewed via. The new generation, often referred to as millennials, have never held a slide in their life, let alone seen a projector. For them, everything is handled digitally. A slide scanner allows these dramatically different ways of approaching photo viewing to come together, by turning slides into digital images, as if they were taken on a smartphone. A slide scanner connects directly to your computer, and after some software installation, allows you to scan your slides and upload them to your laptop or desktop.
The files will then automatically save in a folder, similar to the way your media saves when you hook your smartphone up to your computer through a USB cord. Once your slides have been converted, you can do all of the things to your old slides that you can do to any digital file on a computer. If there are issues like or blurry eye in the original image, it can be easily fixed. If you want to crop a person out of the image, but still save a version where everybody appears, that can also be accomplished.
You can also apply color filters to your images, making them black and white or brightening certain details. You also have a guaranteed backup of your pictures, should you lose the physical slides. Having digital copies of images is the best way to preserve the image quality. The clarity and color of slides degrades over time, but digital files don’t. Holding onto slides is a big responsibility as well. If anything happens to them, that image could be lost forever, but it is easy to make and save multiple copies of digital files on different devices.
One final and major benefit of using a scanner to convert your files is that you no longer need a projector to view your photos. Projectors are hard to find today and they’re becoming rarer every day as manufacturing of. Depending on one to review precious memories is not sustainable.
Features To Consider If you’re serious about preserving your photos, look for a flatbed scanner. The alternative would be a sheet-fed scanner, but these run you the risk of causing damage to your photos as you insert them into the device.
If your hope is to remove damages that have already occurred, consider a model with dust and scratch removing capabilities — these can be effective in removing marks from your photos. If you’re serious about preserving your photos, look for a flatbed scanner. A few models include printing, faxing and copying functions, which are features dedicated will appreciate. If you do like to create photo albums, another thing to look at is the maximum scan area of your model. A larger scan area ensures you aren’t limited in the size or number of images you can scan at one time. Some models can scan, in addition to slides, meaning you can digitize photos that were never even developed.
If you need to share images with family, friends or colleagues, and you scan a high volume of slides per day, look for a model that automatically uploads your files to cloud-based storage services where others can easily access them. Another feature that’s helpful for high-volume scanning is a film holder — this is a place on your scanner where you can store slides and film while you’re scanning something else. Tips For Successful Scanning If you want the best image quality possible, you’ll need to be patient. Trying to scan several photos at one time will typically result in different shadows, highlights, and mid tones on each photo. You can check the light and dark measurements in your photos using the on the preview screen of your scanner. Trying to place your photo in the center of the scanner and straighten it can result in a loss of resolution.
Instead, set the slide straight against the edges of the flatbed. Cleaning the glass regularly is another basic tip that applies to all kinds of scanners. Dust in your flatbed will appear in your images, and sometimes permanently damage the original photo. When first archiving your file, save it as a or – these are the best for preserving the integrity of the image. When it’s time to send your files, you can duplicate them and save new versions as JPGs to make emailing easier. If you want to make adjustments in Photoshop or another image editing software, make those in your scanner driver instead. Using a photo editing software to fix your images can destroy it fi you are working with the original file.
Instead, use the automatic detection and correction features in your scanner and set it up to make the adjustments you want before putting in the slide. Keep a log to record what images have already been digitized, so you don’t waste hours re-scanning photos you’ve already scanned. Another tip is to scan everything and trash the unwanted files later, rather than waste time debating what to scan. Thanks for reading the fine print. About the Wiki: We don't accept sponsorships, free goods, samples, promotional products, or other benefits from any of the product brands featured on this page, except in cases where those brands are manufactured by the retailer to which we are linking. For our full ranking methodology, please read about us, linked below. The Wiki is a participant in associate programs from Amazon, Walmart, Ebay, Target, and others, and may earn advertising fees when you use our links to these websites.
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Updated September 20, 2018 We are committed to researching, testing, and recommending the best products. We may receive commissions from purchases made after visiting links within our content. Learn more about our. Document scanners are the modern-day answer to filing cabinets. Where once important papers were jammed into folders then crammed into drawers, now they can be digitized so you don’t even have to stand up from your desk to access them. Of course, this requires that you have the right equipment, and the right equipment for you can depend on exactly what you want to put in your digital filing cabinet. A multi-page sales report?
Where do you want to store the images? Do you want to be able to edit them later? All these factors are critical to selecting the right one for your needs. To help, we've rounded up the best document scanners on today's market.
The ScanSnap iX500 is easy to set up and it’s not prohibitively expensive. Not to be confused with Fujitsu’s ScanSnap S1300i — that one’s portable — the iX500 is intended to park in one place and handle pretty much anything you need. It’s capable of scanning at 25 pages per minute and will stand up to as many as 2,000 uses a day. The feed tray is adjustable to handle documents of various sizes, and quality detection and correction is automatic.
Auto sheet-fed, it can handle duplex scanning, and it’s wireless, connecting to Mac or Windows computers via a Wi-Fi 80.211 b/g/n or USB 3.0 interface. It will even work on your iOS or Android tablet or smartphone. It also scans to several cloud services.
The iX500 comes with its own software that’s very popular with users. You can easily manage images when the scanning is done in searchable PDF files. The Doxie Flip comes with something no other desktop document scanner offers — a removable lid.
This makes it capable of scanning just about anything from traditional documents to solid objects such as coins. It’s battery-powered, so you can take it with you if you have to do business on the road.
It doesn’t require a computer, either, although it is compatible with both Mac and Windows, as well as your iPhone or iPad. It’s neat and unobtrusive, about 10 inches wide by 6.5 inches deep and less than 2 inches tall.
A transparent window lets you preview your scan. Doxie software comes included. If preserving photos is your goal, take a look at the Epson Perfection V800 scanner.
It’s suitable for photographic prints of up to 8 x 10 inches and it handles slides and film as well, both positive and negative. It’s equipped with two lenses, so it can handle both. You’ll get 4,800 dpi resolution for photos and 6,400 dpi for film and slides. You can set the Perfection V800 to auto to take care of the setting for you, or control them yourself to create the effect you want to achieve. If you don’t like the finished product, this scanner also offers editing and correction features.
It’s compatible with Windows and Mac. It’s a bit on the pricey side, but the Epson Perfection V800 might be the ideal scanner for professional photographers. OK, it’s big and it might be a tight fit in smaller office spaces, but if you have extensive scanning needs and enough room for it, the ImageCenter ADS-2800W from Brother is an award winner. It’s heavy duty and suitable for a larger workforce’s needs. The ADS-2800W features extensive ports and options for connectivity, from Wi-Fi to a Gigabit Ethernet network connectivity standard. It’s fast — it can handle up to 30 pages a minute at a resolution of 300 dpi — and it’s a duplexing scanner with two separate elements, so it can scan easily two-sided documents.
The automatic document feeder can hold up to 50 pages, and if one of the pages happens to be blank, that’s not a problem. The ADS-2800W will automatically skip it.
It scans in both color and black and white, so it’s suitable for everything from photos to multi-page documents. It’s wireless and lets you scan directly to cloud applications. The Touchscreen color display measures 3.7 inches. And you get free technical support for as long as you own it.
Measuring just about six inches deep, Canon’s imageFormula DR-C225W is perfect for smaller workspaces. It fits nicely on your desk and its shape allows you to situate it against your wall to save space. The DR-C225W fits a lot into its compact size, however, including duplex scanning, a 30-sheet tray, and a scanning speed of up to 25 pages per minute, even when it’s scanning color documents — and that’s in duplex mode.
If you’re only scanning one-sided documents, the speed ramps up to 50 ppm. The DR-C225W automatically detects sheet size and color, it’s compatible with both Windows and Mac, it has built-in wireless capability and it even comes with its own software. It lets you create and edit PDF files. All this and it weighs only about six pounds.
Brother offers several scanner models. The DS-620 is handheld and it powers up via a USB port, so no outlet required. It’s not a duplexing scanner, but that shouldn’t be a problem if you don’t have to scan a lot of two-sided documents. It’s less than a foot long and it’s thin, so it will fit easily into most briefcases and bags if you find that you sometimes need a scanner when you’re in transit. The DS-620 scans to cloud services, as well as to all traditional land-locked file systems, including searchable PDF. It’s compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux. The CanoScan LiDE220 is notable for the way it organizes and searches scanned PDF document files, but it can scan photos, too, both at 4,800 dpi resolution.
Editing features include dust removal and color correction. And it's capable of saving to some cloud services. The LiDE220 has an auto-scan mode that will automatically adjust features based on what you’re asking it to do. The top expands to accommodate larger, more awkward items that you might not think would be capable of scanning. But best of all, it’s surprisingly inexpensive. Yes, you can scan documents on CZUR’s ET16 Plus, but you can also scan just about anything else imaginable because of its overhead design and its one-of-a-kind side lighting. It’s ideal for scanning books with an automatic flattener and “finger removal” feature — if you use your hand to hold the book down on the scanning bed, any glimpse of your fingers will be cropped out of the final image.
The flattener isn’t a physical feature but rather a processing component that actually views the book as though it’s laid perfectly flat. The ET16 Plus can scan both pages of an opened book at once and it can do it in about 1.5 seconds. It recognizes 187 languages and will convert all of them to English or any other language you prefer.
Scanned images also convert into editable documents such as Word or PDF.