Converting old photos to the digital age

[traveler]

So I'm feeling pretty pumped now that I was able to post my first photo (with minimal frustration!) So heres the thing...I have gazillions of non-digital pics from years of toting my film camera around. Scanning them one at a time is slow work, and the quality leaves something to be desired. Is there any other option?

[pikedreams]

I'm curious about this too. I have years worth of Kodachrome slides I'd love to have converted. Anyone?

[Dbl]

Options that I am aware of and there may be others;

1. Commercial service, like Ritz, etc. They will for a fairly high cost per slide convert over to digital.

2. Your own flatbed scanner. I have one with a slide template that allows you to scan 6 at a time I believe. Quality is only so so but I think its better than nothing.

3. Some cameras come with an attachment that allows you to put the slide in and take an actual digital photo of it. I know some of the Point and Shoot cameras have that attachment and I've heard they do a decent job. Never seen a copy of one though.

4. I believe there are also commercial grade scanners but they are pretty expensive so that route may not really be much of an option.

[Glockwinger]

There is a company called Hammacher Schlemmer that you can google that sells a slide scanner for about a hundo. I plan on getting one for scanning the boxes and boxes of slides I got from my grandparents from the 1950's - 1970's.

[Steve Foss]

As Glockwinger said, there are plenty of dedicated slide/negative scanners out there. We used one at the newspaper I worked for for a couple years as we were transitioning from film to digital, and for a hundred or two you can get a decent scanner. The more you pay, the better the quality.

So you either pay for a scanner and spend the time on top of it to do the work or you pay for a scanning service and save yourself all that time.

Buying a scanner would be a one-time expense, and when you scanned all your slides it would just sit in a corner gathering dust.

Probably makes sense to google and find prices for the slide/negative scanners and then to find prices for scanning services and compare.

[traveler]

So nothing really for color prints?

[Steve Foss]

Sure, scan them on a flatbed scanner or hire someone to do it. Same deal as with slides or negs. Scanning a print, even with a good scanner, will deliver a poorer quality image than scanning the original slide/negative, but we've done it for clients quite often with OK results.

[fishinchicks]

I have a membership to a digital scrapbooking place. My consultant is a good friend of mine, so she has offered to scan mine for me. She bought a scanner/printer combo that can scan about 400 photos in about an hour. She will then give me a disc with all the images. The photos she has scanned and published for her own family turned out great. She was able to go in with Photoshop and fix some age related issues.

Long story short, find someone who is involved in digital scrapbooking, and ask where they have their stuff scanned.

[traveler]

i guess thats what I was thinking...the ones I've scanned myself haven't turned out very well, I was just wondering if going somewhere with better/faster equipment would show better results.

[Sarpy Creek Boy]

I have been researching scanners for about a month now. Mainly for scanning old negatives. Wanting to keep my price below 300.

Here are my three top choices.

1) canon 8400F

2) visioneer 9520

3) HP G4050.

The HP is about to come off my list because of issues with windows vista. If I didn't have vista this would be at the top of my list.

Stay away from anything less than 100 bucks.

I have worked with two different models of the visioneer scanners and they worked great , but these were older models and didn't have the capability of scanning negatives One newer model of the visioneer was able to scan slides but only one at a time.

Software included should be a big factor in making the choice.

Hope this helps.

This purchase will also be used in my home office for scanning documents also.

[USRanger]

Traveler, I have a Canon 8400F scanner which I think does great for converting slides, prints or negatives to a digital format. Any questions just let me know.