Putting old photos onto a memory stick

Chrisca50

Morning

Has anyone on here used a company/website that scan precious photos onto a memory stick or suchlike for safekeeping please.  I'm thinking of using A*da at the moment but if anyone has another company they recommend I'd be grateful.  Thanks

Gers

Chrisca50 said:

Morning

Has anyone on here used a company/website that scan precious photos onto a memory stick or suchlike for safekeeping please.  I'm thinking of using A*da at the moment but if anyone has another company they recommend I'd be grateful.  Thanks

Chrisca - have you thought about doing it yourself? A flatbed scanner can either do one photo at a time or a number. My Canon scanner can separate each photo as it scans. It'll be more time consuming than sending them to a company and, of course will depend on how many you have to scan.

I did all my late DMs before she died and we enjoyed looking at them all. Then I did all mine, I had the time!

Chrisca50

@Gers I had thought about that when I started getting some photos together a couple of months ago.  I was going to ask my DS as he's a Network Manager and knows all about these things too.  I was even thinking of being cheeky to see if he could get one of his minions at work to do it if they had one which I'm sure they have, but, seriously, I wouldn't do that. 

Are they idiot proof?  lol. It's worth thinking about though, thanks.

Gers

Chrisca50 said:

@Gers I had thought about that when I started getting some photos together a couple of months ago.  I was going to ask my DS as he's a Network Manager and knows all about these things too.  I was even thinking of being cheeky to see if he could get one of his minions at work to do it if they had one which I'm sure they have, but, seriously, I wouldn't do that. 

Are they idiot proof?  lol. It's worth thinking about though, thanks.

Once you've got the hang of it then yes! It takes a little time to familiarise yourself with its working and set up the destination folder on your PC (or USB drive) then it's fine. Ask your DS for more advice as he knows you.

DullGreyGuy

Chrisca50 said:

Are they idiot proof?  lol. It's worth thinking about though, thanks.

If you are doing 1 photo at a time they are fairly idiot proof but also time consuming. Most you can do multiple at the same time as long as there is clear gaps between them but sometimes the edge detection doesn't work too well if any of the edges are very bright/overexposed.

DIY scans can prove to be fairly large files so also depends on what you intend to do with them once they're scanned, how many you have and what storage constraints you have. 

Farway

Chrisca50 said:

@Gers I had thought about that when I started getting some photos together a couple of months ago.  I was going to ask my DS as he's a Network Manager and knows all about these things too.  I was even thinking of being cheeky to see if he could get one of his minions at work to do it if they had one which I'm sure they have, but, seriously, I wouldn't do that. 

Are they idiot proof?  lol. It's worth thinking about though, thanks.

Flat bed scanners are very easy, plug & play in the main.

You will get lots of advice on the tech forum if you ask, but basically just photo faces down & press scan

It does take time, like hours, so choose the times you have "spare"

Scan at high resolution, you can always go lower, but it is silk purses & sows ears with scanning

Brie

My brother has also been scanning a lot of old negatives he found.  Really ancient ones (70+ years etc) He then has a programme that reverses what is scanned so that he ends up with a copy of what would have been a photogragh.  It's been great fun for all of the family as there's some of our mom about aged 16 (she's now 96) and others of when our parents were dating.  (they married in 1950) 

Just thought I'd mention it in case others have negatives.