Slide Adapters

Posted April 16, 2009 By admin

to scan 35mm slides is a 48 bit flatbed scanner with a slide adapter good enough?

compared to a slides-only scanner

-for professional purposes- CD, website, prints

Generally, not for *professional* work, depending how you are defining that.

It doesn't matter the bit depth of the scanner so much (although more is better), it matters how many pixels the sensor can scan the slides at.

A good dedicated slide scanner can scan 4000 or even 8000 pixels, a flatbed scanner depending on the features, would usually scan 1200 - 2400 pixels on a 35mm target.

The scans from a flatbed scanner also generally have a lower dynamic range than a film scanner.

Now, the results from a good flatbed with a 35mm adapter may well be good enough for onscreen presentation and web work, which is all low resolution anyway. But for print, it might not be good enough, depending on the size and resolution you need for print.