Scanning 1000's of photographs

[CEK40]

Good Morning and an early Happy New Year to you all!!

I was wondering if anyone out there has ever used a professional scanning service to transfer photographs to digital? I have 1000's of photographs many without the original negatives and would like to get them scanned for safety. I am fearful of sending my precious photographs away in a box via US Mail/UPS/FedEX, or do I invest in a pro style flatbed scanner and do it myself? It will take a looooog time I am sure.

Then what scanner would I purchase and what is the best dpi that I should look for in a personal scanner? Oh and what would be the best dpi for a professional scanning company if you were to send them away to be done? I have been looking on line a professional scanning companies and they all have different scanning dpi resolution.

Your suggestions and input are greatly accepted. I just don't know what to do at this point.

Thanks so much!!!
CK in VA

 

[boBQuincy]

I have used a professional scanning service (Discount Digital Art in Raleigh NC) and was pleased with their service. What I was not pleased with was what it would cost to scan all my negatives so I am working on it myself, a little at a time. So to answer one of your questions, yes it will take a long time to scan thousands of prints. To answer another question, it will be much less $$$ to do it yourself.

As for the scanner, prints are not high resolution or density. Scanning at 300 dpi will get all of the information a print contains. Print density rarely exceeds dMax of 2.0. Together, this means almost any scanner will suffice, a pro model is not necessary.

I recommend Epson's V500, they are fairly fast, not expensive, and can scan slides and negatives as well. If the price is still too high a lower model will still scan prints well but may not be able to scan negatives.
To reduce time and cost I recommend finding a student who has some time on their hands and who could use a little cash for doing some easy scanning work. That way you save time, money, and eliminate the risk of sending your prints away.

 

[My2Girls66]

I am in the process of scanning 1000's of photographs myself. I am using a Canon Pixma scanner, printer,copier, set at 400dpi. The scanner will automatically crop the photos if I put 3 photos on the scan bed at the same time which is very handy. I have been working on this for a few years now though. I started with photos of my oldest DD from when she was born in 1989 and I just finished through 1998. Just scanning is time consuming, I have also been naming all pictures with a #, date and most with names of people in them and where it was taken. I realized after uploading a few years worth to Smugmug that I need to redo file names because I want them in chronological order. I found I have to start with 0001, just starting with 1,2,3 would all get out of order when the computer organized them as 1,12,13,14....2,20,21,22
I never bothered pricing a professional to do it, just figured the cost would be way out there.
After I am done scanning each year I am putting the photos into those little100 photo books. I had them all in older photo albums with the sticky pages which were tearing as I was removing the photos to scan them.

 

[My2Girls66]

I want to add that I started scanning with a different scanner set at a lower dpi and I notice the difference in quality. Eventually, if I get ambitious I may go back and do the 1st few years at a higher dpi.
The 1st few years of photos are around 900x700, the later ones are 2300x1500 and 3500x2300.

 

[photo_chick]

I too decided to scan at home rather than pay someone to do it. I use an older Epson 4870 photo, but it's very similar to the V500 (I've used the V500 on campus).

The biggest thing if you scan them yourself is to make sure you scan at sufficient quality for what you need, at the same time not going overkill and wasting time. The second biggest thing, keep everything clean. It's much easier to start clean than to photoshop out dust later.

Read this article if you don't understand how DPI and resolution works and decide to scan yourself..
http://www.istockphoto.com/article_view.php?ID=199