Recently, we have a need in my family to preserve slides by scanning them into the computer and digitizing our analog photo collection since mold, mildew, and other “elements” are starting to deteriorate the photos.
Costco had a sale on the 3600u slide projector making it an ideal alternative to sending them into a photo place for scanning. If we could just scan them in at home, we would be able to save money and
edit as we scan. So I picked up one of these scanners and started working.
When I opened up the unit, I noticed that the scanning head had become jammed probably from shipping. A quick jerk knocked it back into place after I realized that it wasn’t supposed to be like that. After the
first few scans, I realized that there must be some issue with the scanner since none of the slides were turning out well. I decided to get another one to try and experience similar results of pictures being fuzzy, very dark, and generally horrible quality. I checked out the manufactures website and read through the manual.
After trying every setting possible (exposure, brightness, contrast, etc), I realized that scanning slides is something this unit wasn’t designed to do very well. Some of the slides that I know are very clean and clear come out horrible, dark, and completely unusable. Thank goodness I purchased this at Costco since their return policy is very liberal. Usually Costco has products with high quality; however this scanner must have been an exception to Costco’s quality guidelines.
The Good: Small form factor. Comes with Adobe Photoshop Elements. USB 2.0.
The Bad: Horrible quality. Manufactures software is very buggy in Windows (crashes often). Scans take over 60 seconds each. Poor unit build quality. Only can scan one slide at a time. Scanner head has no “lock” mechanism for transportation protection.
Bottom Line: Save yourself the trouble and steer clear of this scanner (and I assume company). Costco offers slide scanning for $0.29 each at the photo lab each. They come on a CD and look fantastic.