SlideScan

Last month we had a 1990 VHS tape transferred to digital format. I was going to take in some old slides to have cleaned and also transferred to digital format. But before I did I checked the internet to see if I could do this at home. I found the SlideScan app that had pretty good reviews. We used to have “home slide night” when we were kids. My dad was in to photography and I wish I had saved his 35mm camera. Over time I found a variety of gadgets to view the slides and also had several hard copy prints made of my favorites. But now everything is digital and I wanted to have the last sixty or so images stored on my iPad and in the cloud. So I purchased the one month $9.99 option and went to work. You basically hold the slide up to a backlight on the iPad, then use the app while holding the photo button for three seconds. It then scans the image and better defines it. A face enhancer can also be applied. The results are actually quite good depending on the original slide and quality of the image. One interesting option is to create a video out of the image - and I tried that with my dad’s photo. It actually comes to life with head movement and blinking eyes. You only get one chance and then it’s $4.99 for additional images. I’m just sorry I didn’t keep all of the slides of our family history. When my mom passed away three years ago we went through all of these things. My brother and sister kept some of the albums. I took photos of a lot of the pictures. At least I still have some of these treasures including birthday parties, proms, Christmas, the first step on the moon tv broadcast, family trips - including Washington DC and the World’s fair, my grandpa, our old house in New England… my parents did everything they could to provide for us and gave us a comfortable home. It’s really obvious when you look at these pictures.