Get Your Photos Scanned

EliotVanBuskirk

Posted: Feb 5, 07 2:01pm

Digital imaging is one of the most exciting aspects of the technology revolution currently changing our lives. Digital pictures can be emailed, shared online, transferred onto your iPod, and so on.

But what about your prints? How do you let those in on the fun? Scanners are really inexpensive these days -- that's not the problem. The problem is that scanning a box of photos is a lengthy, tedious process, requiring superhuman reserves of patience and vast tracts of free time.

Rather than spending the next ten or so weekends at the scanner or dropping a thousand bucks on a machine that can handle 25-50 prints per minute, consider an alternative: sending your photos to be scanned by one of the new services that specializes in doing exactly that. You send them the photos; they return them along with CDs or DVDs of the scanned images.

A recent Wall Street Journal round-up of these services lists a number of services that do this; ScanMyPhotos.com, at 5 cents per print, offers the best deal by a long shot (they'll scan up to 1,000 prints for $50).

So, what do you think... would you trust one of these companies with all of your prints? Or, if you've used one of these services before, how did it work out?

And on a larger scale, how have people dealt with old prints; do you think it's important to digitize them, or are they just fine the way they are?

7 Comments // 8 Members

Posted: Feb 5, 07 5:56pm

Digital imaging is one of the most exciting aspects of the technology revolution currently changing our lives. Digital ...

This is a godsend! I have 10 shoeboxes of old photos sitting in my closet.....waiting for a service like ScanMyPhotos. Thanks Eliot for bringing this up....Whatever modest risk there might be in sending these photos to a third party is nothing compared to scanning each of those photos.

Years ago, my sister passed away. I have hundreds of photos I've always wanted to put into a scrapbook for her son. Now I can do it digitally which will make it much easier and longlasting.

Posted: Feb 5, 07 8:30pm

Digital imaging is one of the most exciting aspects of the technology revolution currently changing our lives. Digital ...

I've just become a big fan of digital photos. Last week my daughter's boyfriend gave her a supprise birthday party. He worked really hard on it and it was a big success. I took a lot of great pictures and then went on ShutterFly and made them each copies of a booklet documenting the occasion. Getting everything set up was frustrating as I have very little patience for stuff like that. But the results were worth it. And I'm sure it will be easier next time.

Posted: Feb 6, 07 7:54am

Digital imaging is one of the most exciting aspects of the technology revolution currently changing our lives. Digital ...

Thanks Eliot! I've been looking for an easy way to digitize my boxes and boxes of old photos from my past. Old friends be on the look out for some embarrassing bad hair photos!

BrianneMiller
BrianneMiller
Staff

Posted: Feb 7, 07 10:16am

Digital imaging is one of the most exciting aspects of the technology revolution currently changing our lives. Digital ...

Cash has got a point here...while I have a treasure trove of old photos begging to be scanned, I think I'll exclude the disco-era prom photos of me and the long-forgotten date, or that unfortunate "if that hair-do looks good on Pat Benatar, it'll look good on me" phase. Better leave those for my kids to find when they're older and want to spend an afternoon making fun of me.

Posted: Feb 7, 07 7:21pm

Digital imaging is one of the most exciting aspects of the technology revolution currently changing our lives. Digital ...

Call me Skeptical Sally but I'd send photos in small batches so at least if they lose one batch you won't lose ALL your photos.

Posted: Oct 24, 07 4:18am

This is a godsend! I have 10 shoeboxes of old photos sitting in my closet.....waiting for a service like ScanMyPhotos. T...

I have had to scan photos also. It takes a lot of time too. The oldest sibling wants the original pictures. That really does upset me, but at least i will have good copies. It is also a good thing to save to a disk or to a pin drive. I have scanned old photos before and then my computer crashed and I lost some valuable pictures.

Posted: Nov 19, 07 12:42am

Digital imaging is one of the most exciting aspects of the technology revolution currently changing our lives. Digital ...

I have been getting my photos together for this exact thing. The main impediment to Real Progress is that in order to have any way of locating what I want once the disks have been made, is I STILL have to sort them.

A coherent way would be by date (loosely), by events or by person/s. Or all of them. Or, and this would be my dream come true, Cross Referencing.

But I'm told that can't be done, and I know it's not in my repertoire to sit for hours and sort like that. I haven't got the idea yet of the quickest-and-most-useful sort for my purposes.