How to Transfer 35 mm Slides to a CD

Scanning slides to digital can preserve them from further degradation.

If you want to use your 35 mm slides on your computer, you will have convert them to digital files. Most photo specialty shops offer slide conversion services, but if you wan to save money and have the time, it may be better to do it yourself.

Things You'll Need

• Negative scanner or flatbed scanner with slide attachment
• Bulb blower
• Slides
• Blank CDs
• Photo-editing program

Instructions

1. Connect your scanner to your computer and use the install CD to install drivers for the scanner. A negative scanner is the best option and will give you the highest quality, but they can be expensive. Flatbed scanners are more affordable, and several models have attachments that help you scan several slides or negatives at time.

2. Take the first slide you want to scan and use the bulb blower to blow any dust off before scanning it.

3. Place the slide in the scanner. Open the slide scanning program or photo-editing program and scan the slide into your computer. After scanning, click "Save as" and name the file. Create a storage folder for it.

4. Repeat the scanning process for each slide, saving it to the same folder.

5. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the folder where the slide images are stored.

6. Insert a blank CD into your CD recorder and drag your folder full of slides onto the drive letter for the CD drive in Explorer.

7. Click the drive letter for the CD drive and burn the folder with the images to the CD.

Tips & Warnings

• You can use burning programs like Roxio to create a data disk with the slide images, instead of using Explorer.

References

• Ace Cam: 35 mm Slide Transfer