There is an ample opening to slide the slide in, and an eject button to pop it back out. The SA-20 accepts raw strips of processed film from two to six images long. When the thumbnail option is selected in the software the scanner steps the entire strip through and displays the correct number of images. We used the SA-20 with several strips of Kodak Gold 200 negatives and with two of them the images were consistently not aligned. The IA-20 APS cartridge adapter is an elegant and inexpensive solution for APS film.
More details follow in the software section, but it's slick.
Like any APS film handling, you don't ever touch the film. This is not a guarantee that nothing can ever happen to the film, as can be seen in the portrait of Geraldine. That scratch appeared the first time the image was scanned, and that roll had been loaded in the camera twice, negs processed, and two passes through the scanner - about as little handling as is possible. No idea, of course, at what step the film was scratched. After a couple of minutes of inactivity the IA-20 automatically retracts the film into the cartridge for safety.