I purchased a Kodak Slide N Scan and completely agree with your final assessments. While the quality is not as good as my HP flatbed scanner, It does a pretty good job. The ease and quickness of use outweighs the loss of fine resolution for most photos. I was able to digitize about 10 boxes of slides in only a couple of hours, and without all of the hours of painful screeching of the flatbed in my ears. If any of the photos were important enough to warrant a higher resolution touch I could use the flatbed for them. Some simple editing in Photoshop Elements was able to improve the lighting of areas that weren't as bright as I wanted - the good thing was that the resolution was there to be able to bring them out. I did find that this was the best way to improve the lighting on them rather than using the exposure adjustments on the scanner itself which tended to blow out the lighter areas in teh process. Some other things I like about it - it comes with a cleaning brush to keep the imaging area tidy if some dust particles get in there while using it. I found that they were easily visible on the screen when they appeared and I could take care of it quickly and reimage the slide without fuss. I spend a significant amount of time cleaning up dust and scratches on images from our older scanner unfortunately. It also handles an amazing array of slide and negative sizes, and both positive and negative images give decent results. One minor thing I disliked: you can set a digital date on images as you create them, which I found helpful. But, it only goes back so far. I was working on images from the 70s and 80s, and while I could set a correct date for the more recent ones, it could not accommodate the oldest dates I was working with in this set of boxes.
Thanks for the thorough and thoughtful comment, Melinda. I'm glad your experience was similar to mine. That's a great observation that if you want a higher quality scan of a particular image you can always do a scan on a good flatbed!
Thank you, Charlie. This was one of the best reviews I've watched. There are a number of scanner units. You've helped me understand both the units but helped me consider that the choice depends greatly on my goals for using the photos once the slides are scanned. Great comparison information and your recommendations were perfect for me.
Thank you, Charlie! I recently purchased the newly released 7" model. I was initially disappointed that I had "scanned" hundreds of negatives only to find the quality inconsistent. But now I appreciate so much being able to see each frame so clearly. I can then choose which frames I want to scan on the V600. Saves a lot of guesswork and time as I narrow down what photos I really want to work with.
Great insight! Yes, the V600 will be better for some negatives-usually the ones where the quality isn't as good, but they do take longer than using the Kodak, so now you have the best of both worlds!
Thanks for the review. As the oldest sibling, I have the family slides and negatives. This will be a great tool to go through everything and select which ones to save and share.
Thank you for the review and for showing the same pictures scanned with each one. I like it for the viewing capability to actually kick start the selection process.
You're welcome. Glad it was helpful. Yes, it does a really good job with viewing slides and negatives and might be worth getting just for that purpose!
You're welcome! Photoshop is a great skill to have. You might want to check out my Photoshop and Photoshop Elements courses over at qwiklearn.teachable.com
Thanks for taking the time and making the effort to do this and present the results. Exactly what I wanted to know. I have the Epson V700, very similar to the Epson V600 you used for comparison. But the work was sooo slooow. I gave up by the second roll. I will give the Kodak a shot. If I find a photo from 40 years ago that is worthy of a large print, I can rescan that image alone on the Epson.
Thanks for the feedback Poppa Michael! That's a great strategy. The Kodak is worth having just to be able to review what's on the slides and negatives. Then you can use the flatbed on the best images that really matter. All the best to you as you work on your project!
Excellent review. The comparative images between a flatbed, competitor and SnS were persuasive and your articulate commentary convincing. As Joe consumer, chances are I'll look at these photos like I did back in 1970 - open the envelope, pull the prints out, tab through each one and pull out the ones that are "keepers". I'd go to the drug store and make enough copies for my folks and inlaws. But rarely would we do enlargements, that cost too much! Jump to today, I'd do the same thing, but this time, I've made a permanent archive that can easily be handed down generation to generation, and I'm more inclined to share a lot more photos since it's simple and cheap. Now, for enlargements, if I ever find a photo I've taken that is that good, I'd probably get the film or slide scanned on a good flatbed scanner and go from there. No need to make high quality scans when I know the vast majority of the photos I took are of mediocre quality and value! Thank you.
Just purchased a Kodak Slide & Scan! I've got a simple question and can't seem to find the answer. When using this, does the SHINY side go in facing up? Or facing down?
Hi! Thank you for this incredibly useful review. I am leaning towards this model, as I have twenty boxes of slides and countless negatives to transfer. I have a copy of photoshop on my computer, but have never used it. How easy was it to edit the slides in your examples? Would it be possible for you to share the settings for the changes you made? I plan on only changing some, but have no idea where to start. Thanks!
Glad you found the information helpful! Editing photos and slides is a learned art and is different for every image so I really can't give you any settings. I look at a photo a decide what is the biggest problem with it and I tackle each problem one at a time until I'm happy with the entire photo. I also use Photoshop Actions I created myself in Photoshop. Each action automates adjusting a different problem with a single click. For a Newby it would be easier to download the free Adobe Bridge app and use its "Camera Raw" feature to adjust photos by using sliders and other tools. At some point I'd like to teach a course in how to edit photos using both of these methods but I'm not at a point where I can take that on right now. Work on digitizing the slides and negatives first and eventually you can learn to edit them yourself or one of your descendants can do it!
Hi, Just one question concerning scanning. When you scan negative files do you see the original view before scanning or just the negative and than after scanning you can view the result. I just want to use Kodak as "check machine" and than scan on Nikon Coolscan 8000. Regards from Poland.
You can set the Slide N Scan either way. When reviewing negatives the default is to show you the positive image. It's a wonderful tool for quickly seeing the positive images of what's on your negatives, whether you choose to capture them on the Slide N Scan or scan them on a higher quality dedicated scanner.
Hi Roseann, glad you found it helpful. The Epson FF680W is a terrific scanner. Here's my RU-vid review: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GQBXgrFId8w.html
We do not intend to do a review of the older Scanza. Here is a review that you might find helpful: www.slant.co/ai/kodak-scanza-2018-vs-kodak-slide-n-scan
--- Slide thickness problem, solved, see below --- Hi there, I bought this Slide n Scan scanner after watching this video. I have problems with my parents' thicker slided films which dont fit in the mount of this product. Is there any way to get a seperate mount for this device that can fit bigger slides? Thanks in advance. Solution: I dismantled the plastic piece into 2 seperate things, then just put the lower one in to the scanner and you can fit thicker slides through it. If the thing itself gets stuck, just use slide to open the whole, to pull it back. You will have to better adjust the slides doing it this way, though, since they are not fixed in one place very tightly.
@@CiaranMeagher I spoke with a support agent at Kodak today and he verified that the Slide N Scan was not designed to accommodate thicker plastic frames, but is designed for standard paper framed slides. At this point there is no option available from Kodak to address this. Our slides all have standard paper frames, so this is a new issue to us. I'll make a note in the description for the review video that addresses this issue.
@@CiaranMeagher yes I did, I dismantled the plastic piece into 2 seperate things, then just put the lower one in to the scanner and you can fit thicker slides through it. If the thing itself gets stuck, just use slide to open the whole, to pull it back. You will have to better adjust the slides doing it this way, though, since they are not fixed in one place very tightly.
