There is a bunch of info in a recent thread over in the gear section. I just bought a slide scanner a couple weeks ago. Choices start at adapters for flatbed scanners and, to keep it reasonable, top out in the $1300 range with 4000 dpi film scanners. How much you spend depends on the resolution you want, which depends on what you want to do with your slides. If you just want to put photos on the web on display them on your computer an inexpensive solution would probably be adequate. If you want to blow them up much or print them at high quality then you need to look at about 2700 dpi, minimum. The other thread goes into more detail.
Scanning slides was the first time I found a reason to prefer plastic mounts over cardboard. Cardboard mounts are rounded in the corners and leave little hairs hanging over the edges. It just takes a few minutes with the clone tool to clean it up, but that step isn't necessary with plastic mounts. The clone tool is definitely something you will come to know very well if you start scanning slides.
that elitist from silverdale wanted to tell me that all carnes are bad--Studebaker Hoch
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that elitist from silverdale wanted to tell me that all carnes are bad--Studebaker Hoch
Hmmm....I ran into a situation once where the same place did plastics or cardboard, your pick. It turned out that their version of the plastic cropped more of the slide. It probably varies from place to place, and maybe is opposite in some, but it's something to keep in mind.
I've seen this with plastic mounts in two cases---way more of the image was cropped since the mount covered it up more. I have seen a place when I was in Oregon that does a better job using plastic mounts.
I don't like plastic mounts because they do not take slide captions nearly as well. My printed slide caption labels will stay on the cardboard mounts very well, while on plastic mounts you can peel them right off.
Regarding scanners: list your criteria of what you want from it, and your selection will become much easier as Brian mentioned. Do you want to also scan prints? Do you want to be able to generate just up to 8x10 size prints or larger? Do you want batch scanning abilities? These are your main things to list out. Most good scanners offer both USB or Firewire connections now, but many scanners do not.
I'm very pleased with my new Canon FS4000. It scans at a good rate of speed, and if I generate a 4000dpi scan with maximum color depth I have a file that allows me to spit out 13x19 fine art prints without having to deal with interpolation mechanisms like Genuine Fractals (which, BTW, is an exceptional program to use with Photoshop if you need the extra ooompf).
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