Automatic Photo Scanner?

[Mellman]

I know this is probably going to be a very expensive item, but it may be worth it in the long run.

I need product reccomendations for automatic photo scanners. Essentially we have 100's of 1000's of old photographs in boxes around the house, there is no way that I or anyone I know has the free time to go through the process of scanning each picture individually, and doing multiple at the same time takes forever too.

I'd like to get all of the photo's we have in a digital copy, in as high quality as possible so that we have the photo's in case anything happens to the house.

I googled, but got results to products that were no longer available...I'm looking more for first hand experience on the item.

THanks,
-Matt

 

[corkyg]

What you describe is a photographic drum scanner. They are quite expensive. It might be better toi simply pay for the service such as this:

Drum

Drum scanners can go as high as $14,000 (US).

 

[Zepper]

It might be less expensive to farm the job out - and you won't be left with a relatively expensive scanner/feeder that you'd likely not use again. There are hundreds if not thousands of web businesses that do photo scanning/archiving for a living. You probably have at least one right near where you live - many photo shops have gone to this now that film photography is dropping off sharply. I doubt that a drum scanner is needed to do the job.

Otherwise, if your originals are all loose photos and mostly the same size, something like a Fujitsu bin-type scanner might work for you - read the specs carefully to see what you can get as output file formats. Because if in the future you will want to print another copy that is equal to the original, you will want to output in a lossless file format (like TIFF, etc.). The files will be considerably larger than outputting in a lossy format like jpeg. And some Epson Perfection series scanners have auto feeder accys for up to 4x6" photos - some can also scan negatives. But that can cost up to twice what the scanner itself does. Others have auto sheet feeder accys available that can take a small stack up to 8.5x11" and perhaps larger.

Other scanners also have auto feeders, but the input stack size is usually pretty small relative to the Fujitsu. And almost all flatbed scanners are dog-slow relative to the Fujitsu.

And Newegg lists four scanners specifically for photos, but I haven't been able to get the site to display them for me to look at - I guess it's the usual Monday rush on Newegg. Don't we all wish we had their volume of business.

It looks like the only real photo scanner they list is the Ricoh at nearly 5 Grand!!! :shocked:

Some of the Microteks like the i700 office may be possibilities. They have another that is very inexpensive but can only do 600x600 optical res. Might be worth it to do a test on a normal scanner at 600x600 or less to see if that res is adequate for your needs. The lower the res you can use, the faster the scanning.

.bh.