SlideScan - Slide Scanner App

The old adage once again should be heeded. If it seems too good to be true, then it probably is. These apps do great on printed analog photos. But on slides, not good at all. If you have no other means to scan your slides then this will give you a very low res, rough picture of your slide. I tried this against slides that I had already scanned with a fairly cheap Wolverine slide scanner. As common sense would dictate, taking a picture of a slide (even with an iphone 13) on a very bright white background will never get you close to an actual slide scanner. Even slides where the people are up close to the camera do not come out clear. They are all fairly blurred. And that’s where the sharpening tool supposedly comes into play. But this only changes the faces and makes them seem superimposed onto the picture with very little quality increase. Do yourself a favor. With what it would cost to pay the monthly subscription on this app for 6 months, you can buy a dedicated slide scanner that plugs right into any laptop and scans slides in seconds. And the quality is very good. 5 to 10 times better than this workaround app.

I thought I'd try this out to see how it compares to my scanner. I wasn't expecting much from a handheld phone camera. Using the phone is more convenient than the scanner. I tried 3 slides. The first two I was disappointed to see the faces in the background were blurry and pixilated. I thought maybe the slide was out of focus. So, I tried just using the camera on my iPhone X with the backlight. At first I didn't think it would work as the preview was blurry. I backed off a bit and took a photo of the same slides. When I zoomed in I found all my camera shots were clearer in focus and not pixilated (blocky) which I assume is the AI trying to sharpen the photo. The 3rd slide I backed off in the app as well in case I was too close for focus --but, again, the camera app made a better reproduction than using this app. All the trimming and enhancing can be done from the iPhone photo app. So, if you have slides in bulk and like the fact everything is kind of bundled together, storage is offered, and you don't want to manually enhance or flip images then maybe this is a good way to quickly transfer your slides. I expected more in the enhancing and quality department. If you want the best quality where you can enlarge a face in the background maybe stick with a scanner. However, even my iPhone camera app took better copies. For me, I think I'll open notepad with the screen bright for a backlight and just take a photo. Then crop it with the phone app. Trade-off. A little more work for a little better quality and free. Try it before you buy and if you question the quality try the camera app with the phone back far enough for a sharp focus. Zoom in and compare. If your satisfied with the app's quality the extra features are maybe worth it.

We all know our print photos and even our digital photos reside in a photo Limbo land. Never really seen or displayed unless we actively prepare scrapbooks, photo albums or other various modes. The fate of our treasured 35mm family slides from a by-gone day undergo an even more dismal fate with limited ways to view them. They remain in a photo graveyard of sorts. But with this app not only do they come alive, they undergo a reincarnation! They are alive again. Not only can they be shared and viewed again and again, they are set to a slide show setting complete with music. Seeing my parents, grandparents and siblings again brings me back to the time when these memories were originally captured on film. They have all passed on now so enjoying these slides brings me joy in ways immeasurable. I love this app so much.