Best way to digitize old photographs?
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wrote on 24 Feb 2025, 16:27 last edited by
I need to get on this someday. Any suggestions?
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wrote on 24 Feb 2025, 16:39 last edited by jon-nyc
I bought a scanner that could automatically scan multiple photos at once and save them to individual files automatically. That way I could do 10 per minute or so.
I looked into services but they would sort by size when they ran them through their machines so they wouldn’t come back in the same order.
This is hugely important because, with old photos, the set they’re with offer clues as to what’s in each photo. Example - if I see a bunch of pictures from a vacation in 1974 I can tell we visited my aunt and so when I see a house alone in a photo, I know it’s hers. But if you just hand me that photo by itself with no context I’ll have no idea what it is. True for more remote family members too.
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wrote on 24 Feb 2025, 16:56 last edited by
Yeah, the one principle I know is organize before you scan. The services are pretty pricey for something I can do. My thinking is do that, then do a full scanner load of multiple photos. You can always snip out individual ones you might want to send, etc.
What scanner did you get? Just a large bed one?
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wrote on 24 Feb 2025, 17:01 last edited by
A large bed cannon. I don’t have it anymore. I did this after my parents died in 2008-2011.
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wrote on 24 Feb 2025, 17:02 last edited by
My printer is a scanner now but I no longer have any big scanning projects as I finished it years ago
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wrote on 24 Feb 2025, 21:40 last edited by Wim
I scanned about 500 photo's with a flatbed, one by one at 600dpi. Goes pretty slow, but quality is way better than 300 dpi, especially when you want to enlarge/zoom in on details.
I tried scanning with 10 photo's at a time, but I got too many blurred or partially scanned results.
It was time consuming, but I'm happy with the results. -
wrote on 24 Feb 2025, 21:46 last edited by
I did the highest resolution available and saved them as tiff files.
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wrote on 24 Feb 2025, 22:04 last edited by
Yeah, I think higher resolution has to be better.
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wrote on 25 Feb 2025, 01:41 last edited by
https://epson.com/For-Home/Scanners/Photo-Scanners/Epson-Perfection-V600-Photo-Scanner/p/B11B198011
I have this one. I used to try and take pictures only with film camera. I did save most of my negatives, and the above scanner can to negative also with photos.
Like @Wim I did the photos one by one at high settings. Seemed to work best for me.