I had a friend who got me into converting my old photos, negatives and slides into digital format. Old material degrades over time and takes up a lot of storage space. My friend used a scanner but when I checked I found that there are machines that will also copy negatives and slides. Now I've found that several friends are either dealing with it or studying it. There are several brands to choose from and they all claim to be the best. Revain offers user reviews which are invaluable when evaluating these devices. Problems with other brands included light spots on the negatives and slides, the need to disassemble the slide holders to copy, and some brands were incompatible with Kodak and other brands of slides. The Cobra doesn't seem to have any of these issues. It comes with 3 picture frames. 3 x 5, 4 x 6 and 5 x 7. You put in the print, put in the frame and push the button. It couldn't be much easier. The slides come in a different frame, just like their cardboard holder. There is a different frame for the negatives. Like most of these machines, they are largely designed for the 35mm format, although if the print fits in the frame, any size can be copied. Copies are stored on an SD memory card and can then be transferred to any PC. Keep in mind that all cameras produce slightly different results, as do photo processors. That means you'll probably have to run them through a photo editor to adjust brightness, color, contrast, etc. Free editor downloads are available online (CNET, PC World). I haven't found any cons for this device yet. The price was in the range for every budget. January 2011 - CONS: After additional use of the device, I've had blowouts on glossy photos. This also happens if the negative is misplaced. It's like a flashback (when the camera flash bounces off a shiny surface). Matte photos did not have this problem. Reviews show that this is a problem with most scanners of this type. The instructions are clear but short. They could use more detailed instructions. It also seems to conflict with some SD cards. I had a 16GB SD card that worked fine at first but then stopped storing files. A faster 2GB smaller card didn't cause any problems.
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