Scanning old photos

[tonytiger55]

I found a bunch of old photos of my mum, dad and siblings that I thought were lost or destroyed in some boxes in my sisters basement. These are photos dating back to the 70's, 80's and early 90's.

I don't have a scanner. I want to get them scanned and backed up.
Where is a good place to get the photos scanned? What is the consensus on DPI..? Is 600 DPI enough?

[dj_rice]

Staples?

[msommers]

600 dpi is enough. If you have quite a few photos to process, it would be worthwhile to find a used scanner and do it yourself, and sell it once you're done.

[The_Rural_Juror]

Buy a decent scanner and pay your kids to do it. That's how money laundering starts.

[revelations]

600 dpi is enough. If you have quite a few photos to process, it would be worthwhile to find a used scanner and do it yourself, and sell it once you're done.

Thats exactly what we did. About 1 photo every 2 seconds. We had a week of holidays at my parents place and we scanned their 5000 photos. Laptop and a USB scanner.

I want to say Canon, but i believe it was an Epson model.

Also, with old photos I found streaking to be a problem (dirt, dust etc.) so I stuck a kleenex on the tray so that every photo was wiped before it was sent to the scanner. Every 25 picture (or whatever the stack size was) I would turn or replace it.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/images/images500x500/canon_0651c002_imageformula_drc_c240_office_document_1171327.jpg

[dirtsniffer]

Google photos has an option to scan photos. Might be worth a try before spending money

[eblend]

Depending on the format the pictures are in, those scanners that were posted earlier might now work very well. I scanned some soviet photos for my family and all the photos for my wife from Japan (fun tip, Japan photo technology was superior for the same time frame...haha). Anyways, all of my photos were pretty much different sizes, so what I ended up doing is lining up like 4-6 photos on the scanner bed and scanning as one big image, and then trimming pictures and saving individuals of of the big picture. It's a pain in the ass and took a long time. I don't have any recommendations on who could do it professionally, but it can certainly be done yourself if you have the time and desire.

[msommers]

^^ This is what I had in mind. A flatbed scanner like an Epson V600 you should be able to scan ~4 4x6 photos at a time, there may even be software that is able to recognize it's not one large image but a series of photos. I have personally used these types of scanners for film, and they come with their own plastic templates and the software is able to do this, but I haven't done it with a 4x6 (or whatever size you have). Epson scanners are fantastic and have decent resell value.

[BerserkerCatSplat]

Are these prints you are scanning, or the original negatives?

[revelations]

Technology has come a long way. 80ppm for 4x6 at 300 dpi, wirelessly (probably 40ppm at 600?) This is what I would likely get if I was doing this today.

https://www.amazon.ca/Epson-FastFoto-FF-680W-Wireless-High-Speed/dp/B07DLX26BB/ref=sr_1_8?crid=22344HOWIUN78&dchild=1&keywords=epson+document+scanner&qid=1602538173&sprefix=epson+document%2Caps%2C190&sr=8-8

[tonytiger55]

Are these prints you are scanning, or the original negatives?

These are prints.

[Mitsu3000gt]

You can also run them through up-res software too when you're done scanning. That's what I did and had really good results.