Like Joeaksa said: slide scanning can definitely be a PITA. One of the main issues with slides is that they've often been stored improperly, leading to dust, which leads to sub-par slides if you don't get it all off.

If you are going to DIY your slides to digital project, definitely invest in gloves (to avoid fingerprints) and compressed air so that you can blow them off individually.

The main thing to think about is how many slides you have, how much time you have, and how much $$ you want to spend on this project. Sure, you can do this yourself, but is this how you want to be spending your weekends?

Estimate 2-3 minutes per slide, without image/color correction (which is included in the price of scanning at GoPhoto), and - if you're like most of us - factor in getting bored and distracted. :p Then, check a couple services to see how much it would cost you to send that amount.

GoPhoto has an order estimator that helps with this: slide scanning services comparison

When you're comparing, be on the lookout for hidden fees. These will show up most commonly in shipping charges (GoPhoto has a flat $16 fee total - way, way cheaper than everyone else), volume pricing (often, the price advertised is for several thousand scans), up-front organization requirements (we don't have any - go ahead, send the carousels - no extra charge) and the deletion policy. GoPhoto is the only photo and slide scanning service out there with a No-Risk Promise: send it all as-is, we'll scan it and put the images into online albums for review, and you can delete as many scans as you want without paying for the ones you delete - no cap. Other scanning companies allow between 0-20% deletion.

We think that, especially when you're talking about slides and negatives, it's important to lower the barriers so that folks get these memories preserved. Because who really knows what's on them? And, as mentioned, taking them all out of the carousels is a pain.

GoPhoto also scans in the U.S. (ScanCafe ships to India - your order will take about 2 months), so you can feel good about helping employ our crew in Red Bluff, CA. ;)

We're also the only scanning company with legacy online albums that have unlimited storage. You can port to flickr in 1 click, or you can just keep them there.

Whatever you do, it's just great to get those old memories digitized. You'd be surprised at how awesome slide scans turn out - Paul Simon was right about that Kodachrome!