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In Scanners

Ten years ago I spent $400 on a scanner to digitize photos I had taken several decades back when preserving photos meant storing slides and negatives in a box. I installed software and fussed with the process over a period of several days, and digitized a few dozen before burning out on the process. Recently I pulled that scanner out and found that, since I've upgraded my PC, I could no longer get all the software and hardware to talk to one another. I sold my old scanner for about the same amount as this Magnasonic unit cost, and boy, am I glad I did! Using this device requires no software, no learning curve to speak of, and only a USB cable and an SD card to get scans to my PC. The process is an order of magnitude easier than before, and i'm screaming through my pile of pictures. I do have other software for cropping and other adjustments (I use paint.net, a freeware tool), but the Magnasonic scanner makes quick work of the critical transition from film to a .jpg file. The slide holder needs to be removed and loaded with each slide individually, but this process is easy to master. The film cartridge allows film strips to be fed in and pushed/pulled through to center each image in the screen. Flipping the image left/right or top/bottom is as easy as pressing a button. Changing the mode from slide, negative, or black/white is also very easy and intuitive. I didn't even need to consult the manual. if you don't already have an SD card, you will need one. The unit records the file to the SD card, and once you have done a batch, you move the card to your computer for final processing, renaming, and organizing however you wish. I do a few boxes of slides or rolls of film at a time this way. I wish I had this device a decade ago! It has paid for itself already. Soon I'll run out of film to digitize and may pass it on to a friend or family member.

This is one of my all-time favorite gadgets. It scans two sides of a document, in color, in no time at all. Our legal assistant brags about it.