--- Jean Johnson <[email protected]> wrote: > Kraig, How did you take pictures of the slides? As I said, I purchased a digital camera as an alternative to a scanner with a slide attachment. The scanner that was available then was a 600 dpi model, and a 3 megapixel camera gave me more resolution over the area of a slide (as well as the advantage of the camera's portability). This was about 3 or 4 years ago; maybe scanners have improved and the equation has changed. The camera is an Olympus C-3000 Zoom, which has a macro-focus feature. You need macro focus to photograph a slide. I set the camera up on a tripod and pointed down to a slide-sorter on the desk. I moved the camera mount down to the bottom end of the tripod's post -- that just made it easier to position the camera, but wouldn't be necessary if your tripod doesn't work that way. I put the slides on a slide-sorter box (small 4 x 6 inch, battery powered, white plastic diffuser, costs about $15). A cardboard template with a 2" square cut-out in the center, and taped to the slide sorter box, holds the slides in position Set the camera to macro focus, turn off the flash, and zoom in on the slide. Experiment with auto- and manual exposure settings to find what works best. I don't recall exactly what settings I used. I found it helpful to connect the camera output to a television monitor so I could easily check the slide before I snapped the picture. Also, I used the remote-control button that came with the camera to avoid shaking. With the camera focussed and zoomed in as close as possible, I was able to get the 35mm slide picture to fill about 3/4 of the camera's field of view. I would have liked to use all the field of view, but the camera would not focus that close. Anyway, I did get some of the slide mount frames in the picture, along with labels & dates printed on the mounts, which could be useful after all. After I transferred the slides to the computer I cropped out the slide mount stuff around the edges, and maybe touched up the pictures, using Jasc Software's PaintShop Pro. > and boxes of slides from when the kids were growing up. I want to > copy the > slides to CDs for the kids to each have a copy. I also have Adope > Photoshop > Elements v3 that I am in the process of learning. I would welcome a > jump > start! I'd really like for the CDs to be usable in a DVD/CD player > so they > can see the pictures on a TV screen. > I used and recommend "Diji-Album" from www.xequte.com to make CD photo albums for family members to play back on their computers. I also tried a demo of xequte's "DVD PixPlay", which is a similar product that makes CD slideshows to play back in a DVD player. Diji-Album was easy to use, and it has some handy features, such as the ability to "extract" and print photos out of the album. Your Photoshop Elements, or software that comes with your scanner, camera, or computer may work well for you, too. Kraig __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com