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A
t this point, it's safe to assume that most of your photo collection is digital and stored on your computer and (hopefully) a backup disk or two. But what about those boxes of slides sitting at the bottom of your closet (or in your parents' basement) that are slowly but surely fading and yellowing as the years progress? Now, you could go out and easily drop a $1,000 on a film scanner from Nikon, or you could go out and grab Ion Audio's Slides 2 PC scanner for $100. Its 5-megapixel (1800dpi) scanner will leave you with 2,592x1,680-pixel files.

Ion Audio (you know, the PC turntable and miscellaneous audio peripheral maker) touts the scanner's four-glass optical element along with automatic exposure and color balance to deliver accurate scans. It throws in a photo editing app from ArcSoft in case you still want to make tweaks. Included in the kit are two slide trays, each of which holds three slides at a time, and a negative tray. With a single USB connection and one-touch scanning, you might be able to set your folks up with this thing with the expectation of fielding only a minimal amount of tech support calls.