Best Method for High-Quality Photo Scanning at Home?

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samuelethan

Registered
Hey everyone,

I'm looking to digitize a large collection of old family photos and want to make sure I get the best quality possible without breaking the bank.

I’ve seen everything from smartphone apps to flatbed scanners and even professional services, but I'm not sure which route to take.

I’m particularly concerned about preserving detail and color accuracy. Does anyone have experience with home scanning setups that produce archival-quality results?

What scanner or app do you recommend, and any tips on resolution or file formats?

Appreciate any advice or personal experiences you can share!
 
samuelethan said:
Hey everyone,

I'm looking to digitize a large collection of old family photos and want to make sure I get the best quality possible without breaking the bank.

I’ve seen everything from smartphone apps to flatbed scanners and even professional services, but I'm not sure which route to take.

I’m particularly concerned about preserving detail and color accuracy. Does anyone have experience with home scanning setups that produce archival-quality results?

What scanner or app do you recommend, and any tips on resolution or file formats with Tapes to Digital?

Appreciate any advice or personal experiences you can share!
Click to expand...
thanks in advance for any help
 
If I were gonna go down that path, i'd probably look at https://photomyne.com/ and see if it has scanner support, rather than being camera based. I've never used it, but it looks pretty cool. In particular being able to just do a page of photos and pick thing apart looks very attractive. That'd save a bunch of time.
 
samuelethan said:
I’m particularly concerned about preserving detail and color accuracy. Does anyone have experience with home scanning setups that produce archival-quality results?

What scanner or app do you recommend, and any tips on resolution or file formats?
Click to expand...
For slide films I went with a SlideSnap Pro system and a good digital camera. For flat media I am using a scanner with a 2400 optical resolution.

Save in lossless file formats like TIFF.

Look at Library of Congress for info on how to handle various types of images and the resolutions you need. Do not destroy the originals, technology changes and you will want to re-scan them again eventually.

Don't ignore the cataloging and documentation. That's as important as the actual scan.

If your collection is small enough (less than 10-15 thousand images) I'd seriously look at a good professional scanning service. Use one that does NOT send you media out of the country. I have over 50K just in slides alone and about that many negatives as well so for me the cost to send it out was prohibitive compared to buying the same equipment myself.
 
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