Customer Reviews

Innovative Technology 35mm Negative and Slide Converter to PC

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(28)
3 star:		(24)
2 star:		(20)
1 star:		(57)

 

 

I bought the converter to use with color slides, because my computer scanner takes 2-3 minutes for each slide, and with about 6000 slides that's just too much time.
I run Windows XP, and when I got the converter I mistakenly set it up for 64-bit Windows, when my computer is actually running 32-bit. I found out it won't work at all if you make that mistake. Once I corrected it, everything worked just fine. I did run into some difficulty with the slide tray. You have to open and close it carefully -- there are three clips (one in the middle and one on each end). If they are not all snapped shut the slide tray will get stuck. Also, be careful not to spring one of the hinges on the back of the slide tray -- that will also make it stick. In other words, the slide tray is plastic so don't treat it like it was made out of metal. I accidentally sprung one of the back hinges and the tray stuck in the device with my slides in it. I called Innovative Technologies and got complete cooperation from them. They were great!

I bought this product back in MAY2009 and was eager to begin converting my negatives to digital. I did experience some problems. It would freeze and I'd have to disconnect it for awhile. Sometimes it would freeze after one negative, sometimes after dozens, but it eventually does freeze. I must state that my computer is running Vista (which is garbage), but the software is supposed to be Vista compatible. I've even uninstalled the software and reinstalled it, but the problem persists. I've contacted Innovative Technology twice (waited 2 months between emails) and each time I get the automated response telling me how important my business is to them and they will respond shortly. They never do and I check my junk mail before emptying and it's not going there! OK so now that I told you the bad news about this product, how about some good?

I've read the complaints that say it takes a long time to convert each picture, and I have to disagree. It doesn't take any longer than if I were scanning something on a regular home scanner. You do need to make sure that the picture has fully "developed" before confirming the image (you'll notice as it scans each image the color slowly changes...when the colors stop darkening/lightening it's time to save the image and move on). Now negatives don't hold up too well over time and they start to lose their color. What you need is photo editing software to touch up the pictures afterward, but if you ask me that's almost expected. The pegs that hold the negatives are slightly off for some negatives but I just adjust accordingly. You can still close the negative holder without it in the pegs.

The instruction manual isn't extremely helpful, but I still advise reading through it as you install and do your first scans. It is EXTREMELY small so it's not going to take long! Bottom line is it's certainly worth the price. I've already gotten my money's worth out of it, even with the frustrations I encountered.

works great, easy to use. tray is a little cheap, not ergometric, but it does have to be smooth to slide through the scanner. just finished scanning around 1000 images. took some time bout now 50 years of family photos are out of my closet and available to the whole family. well worth it.

I have so many negatives that needed to be scanned, a friend told me about this product and it has been on for almost one week straight scanning my pictures.
No problems, I am buying this for all my photography friends.
Great Product!

I bought this slide converter after researching every machine I could possibly find and pricing digitizing my old slides at a variety of camera services. It was on sale so I decided to try it - I had 15 days to get it to work or return to store. I fumbled with the install - hard to tell if it was me or not - but finally got it all to work. When I plug in the USB cable my PhotoImpression Viewer automatically senses a scanner or camera and I can just select the 35mm scanner. The machine works well, instantly showing the slide or negative. I can edit or repair any faults in the pictures and save for later use. I have been wanting a way to conserve old slides that I and my mother have had to put on CDs in order to pass the family pics onto my grandsons. I was thrilled with this machine. I had tried using small slide viewers and taking pics with my digital camera and found that was best in a dark room, so I figured a slide in a small black box would work and 5megapixels is quite sufficient for the conversions. I can't imagine that anything more expensive would work any better since it amounts to having a small dark room with a light source that transfers the pictures to the computer.

I got this for my the purpose of giving to my dad so he could get all of the old negatives organized and on digital media. Being the resident gadget guy in my family, I thought I'd give it a test drive. Well, what a trip down memory lane. I have a shoebox filled with old pictures and negatives from high school and college (yes, before digital cameras) and so many of the pictures are missing. I spent so much time looking at all these old pictures and sending them out to old friends, who I haven't spoken with in some time. So I got to reconnect as well. Needless to say, I kept the scanner and bought a couple for other family members and friends. It's one of those things you get for you want to share so others can experience the same kind of nostalgia. As an added bonus I won't have to rack my brain finding gifts for awhile- this is really one that is a must buy and great for anyone who has old negatives and a computer.

The FilmScan35 works well for what it is...an inexpensive piece of equipment. The most difficult thing is getting it to work.

I have found that you need to make sure you have USB 2 ports...if your computer is a few years old, chances are, you need to upgrade your USB ports...the older USB ports are too slow and cannot handle the transfer of images.

Also, after you install the program, you have to go back to install the driver..it doesn't seem to happen automatically. Once the program is installed and you connected the machine to the computer, go to Control Panel and Add New Hardware and go through the steps. If it gives a list of drivers choose one from the Windows Update. Then it should say successfully installed, and you are good to go!!!!!

Do NOT waste your money! I bought it to view and save 35mm negatives to CD disks. The colors are not true and there are many small white dots on the images. Called their 800 number for tech support and e-mailed them, too. No response either way. I don't know if the converter is junk or the software.

I bought this Negative/Slide Converter for my father.
He absolutely loves it!! It is so easy to use and works great!
It has really brought our family together, because now we all sit around and look at the computer and share fun stories!
He also loves the fact that he can color correct the images and email them to his friends.

I received the device for Christmas because members of my family knew I wanted to convert my 35mm slides into digital.I had over 2K slides to convert. The device uses white LEDs and thses overdrive the color. There is no true color correction circuit, or LED brightness control. Blue skys are sometimes given an "extra sun" a bright smear effect, at times people's faces become washed out--extra bright in this case.There's more that's not good. The device does allow you to save your pictures in a folder--when it doesn't hang up on you that is. In that case you'll need to reboot the pc and redo the 12 pictures--again. It processes 12 at a time. After the 12th picture you must save the "strip of 12". Using software such as Elements or whatever to correct the picture color, etc... after they are processed by this device is a hit-or miss job depending upon how bad the device converted the picture. In most cases you are not close to the colors of the original slide. To give you an idea how bad this device does the processing take your slide before conversion and compare it to what was processed. You may not like the results unless you like color pictures that look like they aged 200 years. Good luck. (My OS is WinXP Pro SP3)