Early last week I was in the Bay Area, so stopped at my aunt’s house to pick up family slides and hand carry them to Arizona for family to watch over Thanksgiving. Getting the slides through airport security was interesting, and I learned a few tips from the on duty manager, such as use the word "vintage" to describe the slide carousel that held slides from the 1940s. He joked with me that the "kids" at the scanners don’t know when the ’40s were, let alone know what a slide carousel looks like. Not that I was alive then either, but point taken.
For the past few days I’ve been slowly converting these vintage slides to digital. Equipment is an Epson scanner with slide holder, an HP TC1100 Tablet PC, and an external drive for backup purposes. Oh, yes, and the well photographed family dining table.
Photos and slides have played a major part in my family. When growing up, bathrooms were regularly converted to dark rooms. Then, at holidays, we piled into Grandpa & Grandma’s living room — all kids on floor — and watched slides. It didn’t matter if the slides were of camping at Yosemite in 1933 or taken a few weeks before at another family gathering.
Dad (Robert Heiny), Oakland, CA, Sept. 1941
Today, with digital cameras we probably have more pictures and now videos, but for some reason our slide shows dwindled. Mom carries a Zune filled with 2006 and 2007 photos, so she can show off their 50th wedding anniversary party last December, how tall the girls are, or the trip to Tanglewood this past summer. But we haven’t digitized all the old photos and slides. Definitely time to do this!
I’m turning the old HP TC1100 Tablet PC into the family photo processing center. It’s done a good job working with the scanner to import the old slides. Now, I need one of the girls to scan the rest of the carousels in. Oh, Kimberly…. 🙂
The steps to do this are simple.
1. Get a scanner that will hold slides and film strips. Also, make sure that it has a high enough resolution for what you’re processing.
I also scan in old family documents, so wanted to make sure the scanner could handle very faded papers with pencil writing.
Here’s an example of a sermon from my great-grandfather, W.R. Brubaker:
I can barely read the original paper, but the software was able to darken the handwriting so we can read the writing.
2. Your Tablet PC will handle this just fine. Install the software, connect the scanner, and go.
3. Connect the Tablet PC to a TV or projector, go into Mobility Center to extend the monitor, and enjoy the slide show!