NEED MANY `SNAPS' SCANNED, BUT HOW

[gshay]

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We have a huge number of just simple `snaps' taken over decades around the World, yet in print form. In what form or fashion should we use to have then transferred into .JPG's on a hard drive and them import into our Mac's. We don't want or expect `high-res quality, they are just for those old memories. Have phoned several __hmm, bogus companies demanding as much as $16.00 per print.

We could purchase a scanner, but sincerely doubt we will live that long.We are talking "bulk" in numbers, perhaps well into the 6-figure number or higher.

Phoned Epson, a young fellow stated I could do 2 at a time in 12 seconds, hell I am old as dirt, even sitting down, and lifting the cover and --blah blah, rather go "dirt-napping",as in `kick the bucket'.

 

Any sincere suggestions will be most appreciated.

 

Thank you in advance.

 

George the Old

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[earleygallery]

Your choices are, do it yourself, or pay someone else to do it. I'm sure you can find a cheaper service by shopping around, or employ someone as a temp to do it as a project!

 

But..... what are you going to do with all the images when they're on your hard drive? Do you really need to scan them all? What's wrong with just hanging onto the prints and scanning a small selection of them to share online.

[gshay]

Yes your right, but far too many are not for public showing. Nothing illegal but just boring. Your correct, many do not need to be converted, but that still leaves many that do. We have put the word out, for students with the Summer off, but no response as yet.

Still a quandary.

 

Keep thinking about it

 

Danke !

[luigi bertolotti]

To take charge of a bulk of old family pictures to have them in electronic format is always a challenging task, and even more challenging if you have (as me) a mix of :

- Print formats

- Film formats for negatives

- ... and the transparancies too....

 

I am not in the 6 figure size, but in the 5 by sure :

the most important advice is : SELECT SELECT SELECT

second tip : scanning negatives, when I had such a job done (just for some hundreds - 4 or 5 years ago) was less costly; don't know if is still so. Of course, this is in partial contrast with the selection principle.... : for a decently automated service, you can't select within a 6 neg stripe.

 

At the end of the above "test-scan" I decided that is better to select anyway... and keep the prints in a decent order / presentation : you can do it by yourself (just buying some albums), you have fun doing it, you have something that, in the future, is always more appreciable when handled and seen.

 

As a side note, about those "technology transfers" : lot of years ago I made also a number of Super 8 movies (not many... some dozens, I didn't love it, at the end); given that I wanted to keep some of them for my old age and posterities , I did spend not few money to have them in TV-visible format... but this decision was taken 12 or 14 years ago, and I had them transferred to VHS cassettes....

[pico]

Yes your right, but far too many are not for public showing. Nothing illegal but just boring. Your correct, many do not need to be converted, but that still leaves many that do. We have put the word out, for students with the Summer off, but no response as yet.

Still a quandary.

 

Having a capable student do it is a good idea, if the student has a good scanner. We (my former university position) did a big snapshot project using students who did as many scans as they could 4 hours each shift. One major help was the scanner software on a Mac that allowed the operator to just put as many pictures as would fit on the large-bed scanner, not fussing over the individual pictures being aligned perfectly. The scanning software would detect individual images, and separate each into its own file, properly straightened according to its edges. For example, it was typical to do at least eight small prints per scan. It saved hundreds of times the time as would one-by-one. So you might want to inform anyone you speak to that you know of such a feature.

[too old to care]

If you are talking photos, not negatives I did the same thing a few years ago for my wife's family. My setup was my Panasonic LX3 mounted on my enlarger arm (enlarger off) to hold the camera steady and at a height that was easy to control.

 

I placed the photos one at a time under the camera and shot away. My light source was two desk lamps, one on each side. I set the WB in the camera to tungsten to correct for the yellow tone.

 

Once the card was removed from the camera and the files transferred to my computer I simply used the "auto" fix features in Photo Shop to correct as much color and contrast as possible. This setup allowed me to copy hundreds of photos in just a few hours. And, I was surprised at how well the copies were, usually much better than the photo being copied.

 

Wayne

[pop]

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Document scanners can process batches of documents. You place a stack of sheets or prints in the hopper and they pull each individually through. The affordable ones do about 25 sheets per minute. Although they prefer stock paper of about 90g/m2, most can scan thicker material. They often include software which can align the scanned result. They usually have resolutions of 600dpi which seems ample for scanning prints of snapshots. The "better" ones scan both sides of a document in one pass which may be useful if there are notes or stamps with dates on the back sides of the prints.

 

I have studied the specs of Canon, Epson, Brother and some others I can not recall at the moment. Epson and Brother can be used with Windows, Mac and Linux. The Brother can scan to an USB stick without being attached to a computer, they claim in their leaflet. The Epson appears to have the better Character Recognition software which is, however, irrelevant in this case.

 

Do wear cotton gloves when handling your prints.