Scanning oldies?

[WDWAurora]

I hope this is the right place to ask about this! I definitely figure you guys are the experts and can help! I am on a mission to scan all the (interesting) pictures from my childhood. I've done about 300, but let's face facts...I was an only child and only grandchild. I have several questions about this whole process, so here goes:

Some of the older pictures are STUCK in those awful sticky albums. Any advice for removal? Most I've been able to gently ease out, but one album that has REALLY good pics is beyond difficult. The pages are too big to scan the whole thing and crop. They aren't manageable, and the pics overlap.

Is there such a thing as a self-feeding scanner? I've seen them for documents, but I don't really think they would work for pics.

Has anyone dealt with APS film? I'm trying letting Target put them onto cds, but I don't have a ton of hope for how that will turn out.

If you have any advice, I would appreciate it! I eventually want to move on to my grandmothers' houses, and I need to get this process down so that I'm speedier! I live out of town, and my dad's scanner is way better than mine, so I like to do it when I go home to visit.

 

[WDWAurora]

Bumping for the morning crowd!

 

[boBQuincy]

Some of the Canon scanners have a removable lid for scanning large material. I would not trust an auto feeder for valuable photos, there is too much chance of damaging them.

Nikon offers an APS adapter for their Coolscan V but from what I read it is junk. Minolta also has an APS adapter and it works fairly well (I have one for my Dimage Scan Dual II). Pixmonix will scan APS film and it may be worth letting them do it for all the trouble it seems to be.

 

[WDWAurora]

Well, Target didn't have the pics ready tonight. The guy wanted to wait until his supervisor was there tomorrow to try (probably doesn't have much experience with the APS machine). So...we'll see. They are significantly cheaper than Pixmonix, but I do want to see if these are decent quality before I only use a cheaper option. I don't want to cheap out on our memories. If they're terrible, Pixmonix looks like a good option. I like the option of putting them on a dvd, too, since that will be less to keep up with than dozens of cds.

So you've found the APS adapter you have to be too much trouble to be worth it? That's kind of what I figured.

Thanks for all of the info! It's helpful. I may need to look into a Canon scanner. Our BIL wants to go in on one with us if we can find a good one.

 

[wenrob]

You might want to go over to the scrapping board to find out what to use for loosening the glue on your album.

 

[klmall]

One thought on removing old photos from sticky albums (from a scrapbookers point of view) is to carefully slide waxed dental floss under both sides of the photo. The link below suggests unwaxed dental floss but I used waxed very successfully in a big project a couple of years ago. There are also various sprays such as "Un-Do" which help unstick photos available at places like Hobby Lobby, Michaels, A.C. Moore and most craft and hobby stores.

Here's a link to some general hints: Safely Removing Photos from Magnetic Albums.

Most importantly of all, work slowly and carefully and if possible scan or photograph the image before the "unsticking process" begins.

Good luck!

 

[AndrewWG]

I dealt with this issue last year and opted to scan the whole page of the photo album and crop out the pics I wanted and saved them individually that way. Not very easy, but it worked.

 

[Michele]

I would try 'Undo'. It is available in scrapbooking stores. When scrapbooking, it is used to unstick items from a page and reposition them. It works wonderfully on pictures, no damage, no residue.

However, I have never used it on an old album and would try it with an unimportant picture first to test how it will work.

 

[disneygirlinnj]

I've beens scanning photos for awhile now...up to a few thousand....and a few more thousand to go! I just scan as much of the page as possible and then crop the photo. No real easy way to get them off the page if they're stuck and I don't want to ruin the photos. Good luck!