Digitizing a Large Amount of Photos? 112
mcj0422 asks: "With what seems like the many increasing disasters, and also the freak accidents that can happen, there are certain non valuables that people end up losing, the main one being pictures that are printed on film. I know my mom has several thousand photos in our basement, which could be wiped out by water damage in one heavy rain season. Are there any scanners designed to take loads of pictures and turn them into digital files? Is there a service that does this, if so which ones would you recommend?"
I did this a while ago... (Score:2, Informative)
Well.. (Score:5, Funny)
I'd go with the usual "teenager next door with too much time on his/her hands" approach. Five bucks an hour and all the lemonade he/she can drink.
Unless said photos are pornographic.. Then you might have a problem :)
Re:Well.. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Well.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well.. (Score:5, Funny)
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=2053+N+Mo
Re:Well.. (Score:2)
Re:Well.. (Score:1)
-w
Re:Well.. (Score:2)
http://www.reversephonedirectory.com/ [reversepho...ectory.com]
BTW, you don't live that far from my grandmother.
Re:Well.. (Score:1)
Re:Well.. (Score:1)
4 words (Score:1)
Re:4 words (Score:1)
Re:Xerox (Score:2)
Google is your friend (Score:2, Informative)
Dig My Pics [digmypics.com]
Digital Memories Online [digitalmem...online.net]
Digital Pickle [digitalpickle.com]
Photo Max [photomaxtivi.net]
Slide Converter [slideconverter.com]
I'm sure there are more services, but I'll leave the job of going to page 2 up to you.
Re:Google is your friend (Score:5, Insightful)
Fine.. there are some out there, good job, way to work google, but the asker seems to want someone that has an opinion about these services, not a google answer.
ADF it (Score:4, Informative)
Re:ADF it (Score:1)
Re:ADF it (Score:1)
ADF + Scratching = AWFUL digital backup.
They do exist, but are expensive (Score:4, Informative)
We stack the pictures in, face down, they get fed through to a flatbed scanner. But I doubt you would be willing to pay what we did to get the device.
A GOOD digital photo store should have a similar setup.
Whether they will charge you a reasonable price with a discount for bulk is another matter.
Re:They do exist, but are expensive (Score:5, Informative)
But really... If you have the negatives, always scan those (with a filmscanner) rather than prints. Prints almost always have less information than the negatives, and deteriorate faster. A good enough filmscanner (if your slides and negatives are dust free) should only cost $250 if you need to scan only 35mm. One that can handle 35mm and medium format, with dust and scratch removal will cost ~$900.
And get VueScan. Having to manually save each image in photoshop really really sucks when you've got a few hundred images. VueScan saves directly to file, rather than sending the images back to an interactive program. And it works on Linux, MacOSX, and Windows. Watch for scanner compatibility though... the CanoScan models need drivers not available for Linux, but the Epson, Nikon, and Minoltas work in Linux.
All Scanners (Score:2, Interesting)
Seriously if you are talking about a system that you can just pop a stack of photos on and have the process automated you'd be talkin' $$$$$.
Personally I really like epson scanners if yuo get a USB 2.0 or Firewire compatible one they are fast. Store the photos in a lossless Jpeg, RAW, or my preference in TIF. Back up to a RAID 5 or Mirror and then archive with RAR and recovery segments onto DVD-R.
--
So who i
Re:All Scanners (Score:2)
Pickled Pics (Score:1)
Photos ? (Score:1, Flamebait)
In negative format : you need a negative scanner and they come with all the software you need.
Now, I realy do not believe that this silly question that can be answer on any photo related site is on Slashdot !
Come on people, take a walk to the near bridge then jump !
Nothing beats the cost-effectiveness of ... (Score:1)
fast, high quality scanner (Score:2)
Re:fast, high quality scanner (Score:2)
Actually, if all that you're looking for is a backup archive, you can just do a fast and rough sort into piles (such as family, dog, car, food) then scan 5 or 6 images to a page and just save the data without touching it.
If you need to find a specifc pic, fire up Picassa (Windows only sadly) and scan through for the picture. It'll be faster than cataloging and captioning everything.
Most of the scanned photo
Re:fast, high quality scanner (Score:2)
Picassa, huh... (Score:2)
gqview [sourceforge.net] on Linux/UNIX will do just fine for this. Flip through the pix (it'll do the flipping for you in slide-show mode), then right-click the chosen cluster to "edit in the GIMP" to crop down to just the one you want.
Changed my mind. (Score:3, Interesting)
For over 1,000 photos, I suggest you buy a high end scanner for over $500 and pay a teenager $20/hour to do it.
Re:Changed my mind. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Changed my mind. (Score:2)
Develop a workflow, have a numbering system (Score:3, Informative)
Just scan them into one large TIFF and do cleanup later.
That way you scan a pile or box at a time.
Cleanup is a bitch but worth it.
Just crop the images out of the TIFF, color correct and remove dust.
SANE and scanbuttond (Score:3, Informative)
I inherited my grandfather's QSO cards (W3FFZ) from the 50's. I figured I'd scan 'em and put 'em on the web. For the scanning process, I have scanbuttond run my script to scan a postcard size from the scanner, and toss it into a directory. So what I do now, is I go over to the scanner, put a QSO card in, close the lid, and press a button. The scanner scans the card and I can then flip it over and press the button again.
It is difficult to bulk-scan things in general. You really need to apply meta-data to your images, whether you populate any comment fields, the way you name your files, etc. I find it best to go through and rename my images as I take them out of my camera/phone.
Recommend: Negative scanning (Score:1, Informative)
High speed photo scanners (Score:3, Interesting)
Not too many people make photo quality digitizers that are affordable for the average joe. The teenager approach might work but you've got definate food-put issues to deal with- greasy fingers, etc.
You might find it easiest to make up a 4x6 template, some bright lights, a glass coversheet, 2x polarizers and shoot thru the glass with a macro lense and capture a 6mp image of the 4x6. You'll have dye mis-match issues for colour balancing but that would probably be your fastest route. (If you have a vacuum plate/table that would work better than the polarizer/glass method).
Why use a camera vs scanner? (Score:2)
I'm somewhat confused. Why is this method superior to using a device that's designed for digitizing flat work? Most inexpensive scanners can get 6MP from a 4x6 (that's less than 600 dpi), although frankly for dimestore/commercially printed 35mm prints I think that sort of resolution is overkill. You're going to be looking at
I would recommend...caution. (Score:5, Insightful)
By far the hardest, costliest, riskyest, and most time consuming part of this process will be arranging a several-thousand photo collection to be scanned. If you are going to take that step, I'd recommend you arrange to wind-up with both a digitized copy and an old-fashioned one.
We have a good understanding of what it takes to preserve photos, with almost 200 years to learn from our screw-ups. We don't have the same experience with digital artifacts, and the experiences we do have says we're abysmal at it. Physical objects can survive thousands (millions?) of years by accident while we've all experienced the loss of digital ones which were important just seconds ago.
If these photos are important,
Also be aware that making a digital copy of some things (like a photo) can introduce threats which were not there before. A machine jam while scanning or improper handling of unstable photos can cause irreparable loss. I'd hate to see your precious photo collection lost completely to a freak minor auto accident or random theft. Also beware that digitizing a photo is a lossy process: no matter how high a resolution you have a photo scanned at, there will always be some information which cannot be recovered from the digitized version, should the original be lost.
And finally, understand that the simple act of making a digital backup of something like a photo makes the original a tempting target for disposal in the name of 'efficiency'. If everyone in the family has a digital copy of every photo in the box, it might be a lot easier to justify leaving the box in the basement for the termites. And once the box is gone, will you really care about your copy on your crashed hard disk, when you're sure you can get another copy from anyone else at the next reunion. Until you find-out everyone else was counting on getting a new copy from you...
Re:I would recommend...caution. (Score:2)
While true, I can burn a dozen copies of my photo collection to DVD and mail them to relatives and friends in various parts of the planet. It any disaster(s) manage to wipe out all of New England, California, Florida, and Australia, I don't think I'll really care much about the survival of my pictures.
More on-topic, I'd suggest just buying a cheap flatbed with an a
Re:I would recommend...caution. (Score:5, Insightful)
You are only considering disasters which share location as a common mode. Think outside the box. I could imagine many disaster scanarios which would wipe-out all of your photos on multiple continents.
How about a manufacturer recall due to a defect which causes premature bit-rot. One you don't hear about until it's too late. It wouldn't really matter if the disks were stored together or apart.
Or how about a mis-aligned read/write head on your burner. Sure, you verified each disk (on your own writer) after you burnt them, but now your drive is dead, and you discover no one else can read the disks you wrote.
Or, how about a lawsuit? The software you use to view the disks gets injunctioned off the market by a patent infringement lawsuit. (That almost happened with GIF, remember.) You did remember to back-up the viewer along with the photos, right? And an operating system to run it...
Or what if you can't find a DVD player? (What if the MPAA tells DVDCCA to stop licensing the manufacture of DVD players in a few years so that Disney can sell all those cartoons all over again to a new generation of toddlers without worrying about the turn-of-the-century-disks cannibalizing their new sales.)
And those are common-mode disasters. It wouldn't be too hard to come up with a dozen unique, plausible, reasons why 12 DVD's mailed to 12 different locations would be unrecoverable upon return 5, 10, or 50 years later. Let's see:
Re:I would recommend...caution. (Score:1)
I suspect these are precisely the circumstances under which you'd start caring a lot about the survival of your pictures, especially if you have relatived or friends there.
Katrina Lesson. (Score:4, Interesting)
The big lesson was that forsight is required. The hard drive would have been best to run with, but it's fragile, so pack them well. A CD book good, but heavy unless you move to DVD. As usual, having multiple live copies is the easiest solution.
Everyone's pictures are important, so digitize them soon. My digitized pictures are outlasting the ink in my physical versions. Even older silver based black and white images are going away. Digitize as quickly as possible and store the originals as well as you can - correct humidity, acid free backing and all that. Real dissasters can and will take your physical copies. Give gift CDs to friends and family of the images you think are most important. That will protect you against fires in a way that is too expensive and time consuming with physical coppies.
I'd recommend you arrange to wind-up with both a digitized copy and an old-fashioned one.
Is there a way to end up with less?
Re:Katrina Lesson. (Score:1)
You could have only a (digital) copy of the original, or (especilly if digitizing off negatives) you could get a reprint as well.
Re:Katrina Lesson. (Score:2)
Since they are the originals -- the true originals, not 1st generation copies like prints -- you have all the information needed to reconstruct prints at a later date. Physically, they're quite robust: I'd say they're
Overkill? I've got it right here! (Score:5, Informative)
My workplace recently replaced our venerable Fujitsu 4097D scanner. We ran hundreds of thousands of sheets through that thing, and it never needed service beyond my unskilled labor and Fujitsu's ScanAid consumable kits. But when the lease ran out, we chose to replace it with a color model.
Since the 4097D worked out so well, we looked at two of the current Fujitsu models. Both of these scan up to 600 dpi x 24 bit color (optical) and have hi-speed USB2 and SCSI interfaces. Both have flatbed capability in addition to the ADF.
The successor to the 4097D is the fi-5750C. It's roughly $6,000 and has a duty cycle of 8,000 pages per day. (They call that a "light duty" scanner, which cracks me up.) It also has a clever rotating 200-sheet 57 PPM ADF unit that makes it easy to use for both right- and left-handers. It can scan up to 12"x18".
The model fi-4340C is a bit more reasonable, going for about $3500. It can handle a slightly less huge variety of paper, and has a duty cycle of a mere 3,000 pages per day. It has a fixed 100-sheet 40 PPM ADF. It can scan up to 8.5"x14".
We purchased the fi-5750C. The hardest part of the installation was getting it upstairs... it's bulky and almost 80 pounds. Once I had it running, I took a small stack of mixed-size photos and dropped them in the ADF... it handled them wonderfully. Obviously a 600dpi 24-bit scan doesn't run at 57 PPM, but it's still pretty quick and it produced very nice-looking scans. Most importantly, the ADF didn't damage the photos.
One of these weekends I'm going to bring in a portable hard drive and a box of photos, and see how many gigabytes I can fill up in a day.
---
On a more realistic level, here's a couple things to keep in mind. First, scanning a photo print is making a copy of a copy. If you have access to negatives, try to scan them instead. I have no idea what equipment does that well, but I expect it's very expensive. It's probably best to work through a service for that.
Second, digitizing is the easy part... indexing is the hard part.
Re:Overkill? I've got it right here! (Score:2)
Check out this review site [imaging-resource.com] for some good info. An excellent Nikon film scanner went for about $3,000 a few years ago, and there were several sub-$1000 film scanners on their list. Presumably something better or cheaper can be found now.
What about negatives? (Score:2)
Re:What about negatives? (Score:2)
I have a Nikon Super Coolscan 4000ED (Score:3, Interesting)
This is not an urgent thing for me, but I'm pretty happy with the scans I'm getting. I settled on jpeg and decided to live with scans that end up ~10MB/photo. In raw format, at the highest bit depth, I
Re:What about negatives? (Score:1)
It worked pretty well, came w/ software for dust correction (canned air works well too).
It was cheaper to buy one of those and re-sell it on ebay when I was done than to get a professional place to scan my slides/negatives (it does both).
I lent it out to a couple of friends and they thought it was easy to use also.
It worked w/ Macs and PCs - I didn't check for Linux support.
If the negative was saved as a
Re:What about negatives? (Score:2)
I hope, therefore, that you chose to save them as BMPs
A while back here on Slashdot there was a discussion of what file format people would want to use for archival purposes -- really long-term storage, not just a few years or decades. There were some very convincing arguments for using plain-o
Get one with a negative holder... (Score:2)
It will look much better than the faded colors of an old print.
You can only fit 2-3 prints on a flatbed at the same time, but you can usually fit at least two strips of negatives -- between 8 and 12 pictures -- at the same time on a flatbed.
*However* no matter how you dice it, it'll take a long time to properly go through them. But then again, going through old pictures is kinda fun.
epson (Score:3, Informative)
don't get the document feeders like the others say, they're made for documents, not photos.
get yourself an epson perfection 3490 or 3590. THe difference betwee the two is about 50 dollars, one has an automatic FILM FEEDER. I didn't think i needed a film feeder so i went with the 3490. Both can take a "Multi Photo / Business Card Feeder" ~$150. But epson doesn't want you to know the 3490 takes the multi photo, just so you can order the more expensive one. But it's in the manual on their support site.
The automatic photo feeder holds about 25. it does jam once in a while, but usually it's because the photos don't line up correctly. I scan my photos at 300dpi, each takes about 35 secs. The only annoying thing is it comes out reverse, so you might want to sort it backwards.
all in all it's pretty decent. the only bad thing is the dust problem. For some reason they don't make the higher end scanners with feeders. I think these higher end use some system to detect dust and remove it from the picture. So in the end, I occasionally remove dust from the flat bed and any noticeable ones from the photos.
HP had a similar solution but it seems to be off the market now and they rather you buy some very expensive solution instead.
the other thing is, you can also use the flatbed for multiple photos, it autocrops the pictures. throw 3-5 photos on the flatbed and it'll automatically find the pictures. I had some issues with it cropping too much, but it's still quicker than 1 by 1.
Re:epson (Score:2)
The scanner [epson.com] is $130 with a negative scanner. (The next model down was $100, so only a $30 difference now.)
The feeder [epson.com] looks like it will scan anything for which I have no negatives.
Perfect! Thanks
Now I just need to come across the money with which to pay for them.
Re:epson (Upgrade from 2480) (Score:2)
Try Canon sanners? (Score:1)
Photograph them (Score:5, Informative)
The advantage with this setup is that once it is all correctly set up, you can photograph a lot of pictures very quickly. If you have a Mac, you can plug your camera into it and use the Automator to trigger the camera shutter so you don't even have to touch the camera and risk knocking it. You can even get the Automator to automatically crop/thumbnail/whatever the images.
Re:Photograph them (Score:3, Informative)
I've seen a couple of people say this now, and I have to scratch my head at it.
Even a basic scanner can do 600 dpi. For a 4x6 picture that's 8,640,000 pixels, or roughly 8.6 MP. You'll have to have a pretty high end camera to exceed that -- and that's discounting the likelihood of photographing something besides just the picture. Also realize that with a scanner you get even higher resolutions with large
Re:Photograph them (Score:2)
Re:Photograph them (Score:1)
SLR (Score:2)
The current entry level products are all capable of generating very good images.
(Canon Nikon Olympus Pentax)
Some of the kit or consumer lenses aren't great but you can easily replace them with excellent mid range glass.
Re:Photograph them (Score:2)
What's the advantage versus a flatbed? (Score:2)
I've used a real copy-stand quite a bit for making 35mm slides from flat-work, and it's not exactly a brainless procedure. I wouldn't recommend doing it without white balancing, because otherwise your color could be all off, and while it has its place -- particularly if you want to d
Quick work only. (Score:3, Interesting)
A scanner can take more time, but it's worth the effort. Kooka works as well as the best Windoze software with them and you can scan in several photos at once. The quality, at all resolutions, is better than
I'm planning on doing this, too. (Score:3, Informative)
The Nikon Coolscan [nikonusa.com] line appears well reviewed. The best of the line, the 9000, runs ~$1700 on eBay, or ~$1900 new. If you don't need to do any medium format film scanning, consider the 5000, which operates faster. Once you've scanned everything you have, resell it on eBay. With luck, the only thing you'll lose is your time.
I'm planning on doing this in a couple of months.
Re:I'm planning on doing this, too. (Score:1)
If you have the negatives... (Score:1)
From a photo lab tech (Score:3, Informative)
Patience (Score:2)
Walmart (Score:2)
The catch -- you have to ask for an "8X10" scan, and they may or may not do it for you.
(You get a ~2 megapixel scan normally)
Walmart scanning (Score:2)
$10 for 40 negatives makes sense (although personally I think it's a bit steep -- most WalMarts have Fuji Frontier series equipment, and a brain-damaged monkey could scan negatives on that; the trick is dust and quality control) but I'm not sure why you'd say anything like an "8x10" scan.
Saying "8x10" makes me think that they're cropping the frame to an 8x10 aspect ratio, which is different than a 35mm film frame -- the film is much longer than an
Re:Walmart scanning (Score:1)
Re:Walmart scanning (Score:2)
Adobe Photoshop Elements (Score:2, Informative)
Digital Camera (Score:1)
Re:Digital Camera (Score:1)
I should build a slide feeder, but even as it is, with a couple of rails built out of styrene that I have to manually drop a slide into, I've been through hundreds of slides by just hanging out a few evenings, an
Three words: (Score:1)
Re:Three words: (Score:2)
Plus, I've seen enough negatives and prints get lost just going from the minilab where I used to work, to the big
Metadata Problems (Score:3, Interesting)
Good idea. (Score:2)
It might be a bit much for most people's level of interest, but at the very least I would suggest scanning ANYTHING that looks like it has informational value. If there's writing on the backs of the photos, scan the backs. (Frame numbers, name of the drugstore it was printed at--common with stuff from the 50s and earlier, handwritten notes, etc.)
But I wouldn't just stop at photos, I'd also suggest scanning the envelopes that the photos are in, and anything else that's in t
Drum scanner (Score:1)
Bash script it (Score:1, Interesting)
I hacked up a quick bash script to do that very thing, but in my case it was a collection of bubblegum cards. If you have a large number of photos all the same size this may be useful. You may still wna tot keep the back-of-card code, since photos are often written on the back with important details.
#!/bin/bash
# Scans in a full set of Return of the Jedi bubblegum cards
# Rotates picture in memory if desired.
# Input: 132 Cards, both sides, inserted seque
Photos to CDs as is floppies to CDs (Score:1)
Do it now, before it's too late.
Maybe negatives would be a better way to go? (Score:2)
Considering the amount of cleanup over aged materials and dust and scratch removal, perhaps http://nikonimaging.com/global/products/scanner/co olscan_4/ [nikonimaging.com] this might be best suited for you
Tried the FAX in a MFC device? (Score:2)
They're cheap & most have auto document feeders built-in.
What's more, they scan quickly... direct to memory (for a while).
Scanner quality varies, of course, & it may be only FAX quality.
Oh, wheren't there some high-end film- & slide-scanners around?
I've got a heap of slides to scan, ie, if one at the right price
turns up at a supplier near me...
Suggestions? (I also have snapshots - color & B&W - to scan.)
scan the negatives (Score:2, Informative)
Re:scan the negatives (Score:2)
Review here http://www [kenrockwell.com]
Simple advice (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't mean to be cruel, but this is realistic. Before you take on such a task, ask yourself is it really worth it. The most cherished these photos will ever be is by your mum, and then less so for each generation after that.
What about photo-specific scanners? (Score:2)
I've tried using a flatbed scanner, but it takes forever. To improve efficiency, I put multiple photos on one scan, but then you need to do lots of processing to separate the images out. Its a real pain.
Photographic Archival (Score:3, Insightful)
Whatever you do, you're probably not thinking enough. Archival is hard.
Here is what I'm doing, and the rationale for why
First, I bought an Epson Perfection 4990. It does 48-bit negative scans with Digital ICE for dust removal. The scans of a 24 exposure roll take 180 minutes, but trust me, its worth the time to not have to spend the time in Photoshop removing the dust by hand.
You are scanning negatives right? Photos are great, but they are a small dynamic range snapshot of what the camera actually recorded. Scan negatives, and scan them in high bit depth, otherwise you're not really archiving digitally, you're making a lossy copy. You want to be able to make large prints, not just 4x6's forever.
I use the bundled scanning software, but other packages are probably as good or better. Each picture is numbered sequentially, and the negatives are moved after scanning into an archival binder with non-PVC negative protector sheets, and each sheet is labeled with the range of image numbers. This is important, as you *will* need to go back and rescan a few images for some reason at some time, and the negatives themselves will last longer than the digital media if neglected.
Now, as for the format, I'm encoding to JPEG 2000, which preserves the lossless, 48-bit image, at 1/3 the size of a tiff. However, no software really uses it, so each DVD includes a Windows and Linux statically linked build of the converter.
Each image group is burnt onto two DVDs, one DVD-R, and one DVD+R, from two different reputable manufacturers. DVD reliability is all over the map, and you don't want bitrot taking out one brand. Burning in different formats mitigates the risk that one format stops being as readable in the future. Each DVD also includes parity (PAR2) files, about 5-10% of the disk depending on how full they get. This allows you to verify the disk is intact, a step you should do to all the DVDs once every couple of years. If the disk is starting to fail, you can copy both DVDs to harddrive, recover from parity, and burn anew.
Each DVD set is a mix of half DVD-R, half DVD+R (eg Disk 1=-R, Disk 2=+R, etc), and a set is sent to my parents for safe keeping, and one set stays here. I've sent the negatives home too, since they live in a safer climate.
Finally, the useless master DVDs with JPEG2000's are nice, but people really want to *see* these images. Here, metadata is key. Make sure each image is at least tagged with basic metadata in the Dublin Core set, like date, subject, location. I'm doing that as a baseline, and adding Flikr style tags to all the images, and Getty TGF tags for locations. The images are then converted to JPG at HDTV resolution for viewing, and I'm writing a viewer application for searching, and all of this will go online.
Its not an easy project, but its really rewarding to come across old photos and know that they won't sit in a photo album or shoebox unseen, and future generations will have something to look back at. Have fun!
HP ScanJet 5500c (Score:2)
First things first (Score:2)
Last year I was at my parents' place for a long weekend and found all these photo albums from when I was a kid just sitting in a plastic storage crate on the basement floor. So I moved it onto a shelf; it's their house, they can do what they want, but at least I tried something sensible.