Scanning Your Photographs

Scanning your photographs can be done in one of two ways: You can do it yourself or send it out to a scanning service to do for you.

Do-It-Yourself Scanning

If you are going to scan your photographs yourself you will need to buy or borrow a flatbed scanner. The scanner can handle any picture that fits onto its bed and comes with the scanning software that you will need. Fragile pictures can be gently placed on the scanner bed and will not be harmed during the scanning process.

A flatbed operates very much like a color copy machine, and many are actually a combination printer/scanner/copier. What makes it different from a copier is that the image is translated into digital form with the use of software. Some image editing software will operate a scanner which usually comes with software that you can use too.

Our discussion will be for someone who is going to be scanning a high number of photographs. This is something called batch scanning. After a lot of research I found the most helpful instructions to be from the Vue Scan Website.

I recently scanned over 3,000 pictures over several months. Reading the instructions from VueScan made me realize how much time I could have saved. Luckily, I enjoyed thinking about the pictures while they were scanning or else I would be really upset with myself for not researching it earlier. OK. I am a little upset.

I used an HP Officejet 5610 All-in-One scanner, copier and printer. The flatbed scanner did more than an adequate job. I do think it almost wore the scanner out because it now sounds like it is on its last legs. I also think it is an obsolete model, but it was on sale at Staples when I bought it. The point is that it doesn't require "the best" scanner on the market to get your project started.

Scanning Services

I have not used any of the services listed below for scanning photographs. I did a Google search and reviewed the services offered and chose these because they were cheaper, but still offered professional service. If the website was hard to negotiate they were not included on the list.

ScanCafe

Price for 600 dpi is $0.29 for each picture and that includes manual color correction DVD of pix is included for free. No pre-sorting or organization of pictures is required. You can view your images online and choose the ones that you want to keep. You only pay for the ones you keep (50% of the pictures need to be kept at minimum). This allows you to see what you are getting before you pay.

Website and ordering information

Dig My Pics

300 dpi scans are for $0.27 ea. and this includes 3 professional reviews. Other Services include printed Thumbnail Album, DVD Slideshow Vide, Restoration Services. Price includes Digital ICE, cropping, rotating, and Manual Image Color and Exposure Correction by their photographers.

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Digital Pickle

Price for 300 dpi is $0.39 each plus $5 for output media. They recommend you use Clean Scan to remove dust and age issues with pictures.

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My Special Photos

Price for 300 dpi for each photo is $0.35 w/o correction by skilled photo shop editor or $0.59 w/correction by skilled photo shop editor. No extra charge if you send pictures in the albums. The storage medium is free and this also includes free FedEx return shipping. They request that you have a minimum order of $100.

Website and ordering information