Just about everyone is taking digital pictures…but what about those old slides and negatives? Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. Maybe they're in a shoebox in the closet or perhaps they've migrated to the attic. But chances are there are decades of old family memories on slides or negatives. There are services that you can use to turn them into digital files….or you can do it yourself. Plustek has created some of the most affordable 35 millimeter dedicated film scanners…the OpticFilm 7300 and the 7500i. Pricing starts at about 250 dollars…with the scanners comparing favorably to others in the market costing two or three times as much. Marketing director Jason Kirshner says the rectangular scanner plugs into the USB port of a PC or Mac….and comes with two carriers…

"You hit one scan button and what it does is it will actually scan that at over 7200 dpi. So giving you an uncompressed file size of somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 megabytes or larger. So that's equal to about 75 megapixel format in digital camera terms"

Odds are…you will want to adjust those settings…to save digital storage space. The 7500 models are priced higher…starting at about 400 dollars…and include software that can automatically remove defects such as cracks or dust. The process…if you have lots of slides and negatives …can be time consuming. But it is not difficult…and bringing those old memories…into the digital age can be fun . Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.