Photo Scanning

[CEK40]

Good Morning,

I was wondering if anyone out there has ever used a Photo Scanning Service to save there photographs. If so, let me know your reviews on them. I have hundreds, and hundreds of photos that I would like to get saved to digital for safety.

If you have other suggestions I would greatly appreciate them.

Thanks for help in advance.

Carla in VA

 

[photo_chick]

If you have hundreds, it's cheaper to buy a good scanner and do it yourself. Though it does take a lot more time that way.

 

[KerTggr]

I would highly recommend getting a scanner with feeder capabilities versus a flatbed scanner. (I have a Pandigital one like this.) I had 2 big plastic tubs of pictures and was able to sit at the table get through them all in 2 weeks of after work TV watching. I have a flatbed scanner too on my printer and would get so bored sitting there with my computer, clicking scan, cropping, naming, etc, etc. This one you don't even need your computer when using and can just feed, feed, feed then stick your SD card in your computer & save!

Much cheaper than ANY service and you can continue to use for all those future character meal pics!

HTH

 

[seashoreCM]

Professional picture scanning techs get it done fast because they can eyeball the picture and set the brightness fast. Whereas you stop and look at the result and perhaps try again and again. (Print film developing machines also had either a quick manual brightness setting or an automatic brightness setting for each negative.)

Also the professionals don't spend time cropping and naming. Their equipment may or may not zoom the pictures so they all end up the same size (this is for better or worse). You get back pictures all with generic names such as img001, img002, img003, etc.

You'd be surprised how much time it takes to choose a name.

300 dpi is an excellent all around setting for scanning color prints for preservation regardless of size. Really sharp black and white prints may benefit from 400 dpi. Not-that-great prints may scan okay at 200 dpi but you'll do it faster leaving the scanner at the higher resolution instead of switching back and forth.

 

[boBQuincy]

You didn't mention if these are prints or negatives. Prints are 2nd generation and have limited range and resolution. If you have the original negatives they will give a much better scan and faster too. Epson's V500 can scan two strips of 6 negatives each and while it is not fast it is automatic so you can be doing something else.

Scanning is tedious, if you can pay a youngster a few $$/hour to do it for you it may be a good deal for all!