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Easiest/Best way to scan old photos?

1,776 October 21, 2021 at 06:39 AM
Looking to scan some old photos and I'm wondering what is the easiest, cheapest, or best way to go about this.

I have maybe 200 photos I want scanned.

All I've been doing is just taking pics of the old photos using my iPhone.

I *guess* it does the job. ConfusedConfused

But then I started to read about Google Photoscan. [google.com]
Seems to get good reviews.

For those of you that have done this before, how did you go about it?

Any apps you can suggest?

Doesn't have to the best quality but I also don't want them to look like poop either, LOL.

Thanks!
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Jedi5
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shyoumaker
10-21-2021 at 06:44 AM.
10-21-2021 at 06:44 AM.
Thanks would love to hear about this also.
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dayv
10-21-2021 at 08:02 AM.
10-21-2021 at 08:02 AM.
check your local library. a lot have media centers these days and will help you scan them.

if the photos are important, i'd find a scanner to use over a camera.
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jkee
10-21-2021 at 01:54 PM.
10-21-2021 at 01:54 PM.
With a good scanner, it would be pretty easy to scan that number of photos. Read the manual, you can often scan multiple photos in a single pass and turn them into separate files. Keep the scanner and the photos clean, a piece of tape around your finger can help you pick the photos up from the glass.

If you've got negatives or slides, scanning those with a good good film scanner (hard to get) will give better results.

If you're dealing with lots of photos or negatives, you may want to consider a photo scanning service that you ship the media to.
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repitall
10-21-2021 at 02:11 PM.
10-21-2021 at 02:11 PM.
Most Walgreens have kiosks that you can scan photos with and then either print or store on CD.
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Dr. J
10-22-2021 at 05:11 AM.
10-22-2021 at 05:11 AM.
Send them out. I did that with a TON of old negatives, rather than kill myself on a flatbed I used a service.
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Jedi5
10-22-2021 at 06:16 AM.
10-22-2021 at 06:16 AM.
Thanks everyone for the help and suggestions.

I do have 3 in 1 but it's old.
Not sure how well it will scan pictures, LOL.

Seems like a scanner is the way to go then.
Thought maybe there was an app everyone was using.

Thanks again!
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jkee
10-22-2021 at 07:04 AM.
10-22-2021 at 07:04 AM.
Quote from Jedi5 :
Thanks everyone for the help and suggestions.

I do have 3 in 1 but it's old.
Not sure how well it will scan pictures, LOL.

Seems like a scanner is the way to go then.
Thought maybe there was an app everyone was using.

Thanks again!
Old is a relative thing. If it's less than 10 years old and the glass isn't scratched it will probably take decent scans. Experiment a bit, compare different scanners if you have multiple, time how long it takes on the settings you want. If the photos are discolored and the negatives are available, it will be easy to get a good image from the negatives.

I'm pretty dissatisfied with the results of scanning photos on an HP AIO that I have compared to other scanners. In general, freestanding scanners (only scan) tend to be a little better. Epson and Canon have both made some good ones. Nikon is often regarded as making the best film scanners, but they don't make them anymore.

Keeping old scanners working on newer computers can be difficult. There's some 3rd party software called VueScan that can keep old hardware working and automate batch scanning
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komondor
10-22-2021 at 04:31 PM.
10-22-2021 at 04:31 PM.
Were you looking for something like this?



11 bucks amazon

https://www.amazon.com/Scanner-Bi...8119642867
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Last edited by komondor October 22, 2021 at 04:43 PM.
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terryschumann
11-13-2021 at 12:25 PM.
11-13-2021 at 12:25 PM.
Quote from Jedi5 :
Looking to scan some old photos and I'm wondering what is the easiest, cheapest, or best way to go about this.

I have maybe 200 photos I want scanned.

All I've been doing is just taking pics of the old photos using my iPhone.

I *guess* it does the job.

But then I started to read about Google Photoscan. [google.com]
Seems to get good reviews.

For those of you that have done this before, how did you go about it?

Any apps you can suggest?

Doesn't have to the best quality but I also don't want them to look like poop either, LOL.

Thanks!
You can buy a printer with scanner for $29 from walmart.
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FuschiaHamster669
11-15-2021 at 10:02 AM.
11-15-2021 at 10:02 AM.
I have scanned hundreds of old pictures using a photo scanner. The quality will be much better than taking photos. I used the feeder in my printer scanner and it worked well but I will be looking into a proper scanner like this https://urlhasbeenblocked.com/5bjb3fd6 because I have thousands more to scan.
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slickr88
11-15-2021 at 10:06 AM.
11-15-2021 at 10:06 AM.
I just use the Adobe Scan app on my iPhone. Pretty quick and easy. And the clarity is very good.
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bythewar
11-15-2021 at 10:08 AM.
11-15-2021 at 10:08 AM.
I got my mom something like this a few years ago for Christmas.

https://neontechnology.net/produc...o-scanner/

It's worked out pretty well
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YanksIn2009
11-15-2021 at 10:14 AM.
11-15-2021 at 10:14 AM.
For that relatively small number, you can get a good flatbed scanner for under $200. You can use a 3 in 1 copier\scanner\printer as well at the highest res and it should likely get the job done as well. No real reason to make it more complicated than that imo and no reason to use your phone (a cell phone is not the right tool for the job in almost any situation). Any decent scanner will come with the software required or you can use Adobe Photoshop or some other 3rd party photo capture\editing software if you have access to it.

If you had many 100s or 1000s of them, then I would suggest using a service but a good scanner and at most a few hours of work in your case.
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venntek
11-15-2021 at 10:36 AM.
11-15-2021 at 10:36 AM.
Google PhotoScan is better quality than just using my camera app when I've used it for photos. You can also send it to a service that scans the photos for you en masse which makes it the easiest, but that's not going to be the cheapest option at all. I haven't used any personally so I don't have any recommendations on a particular provider to use.
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