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SOLVED Photo Scanners

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JLK03F150

What have I done! Member
Joined
May 17, 2005
Location
Georgia
Edit: I bought the Epson Perfection V39 flatbed photo scanner.

Does anyone already have a scanner for scanning photos that they could recommend? I've got boxes of old photos that I've decided to finally digitize and distribute to the family.
I already have an HP Officejet All-in-One so I don't need the ability to scan documents. The HP works great for documents, but it is really lacking in photo scanning.

I've randomly picked a couple models, one is an Epson & one is a Canon. That price range is fine ($110-120), but if the scanner really meets my needs I'm willing to spend 2x or 3x more.
The scanner will be connected to a Windows PC.
 
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I have a 5-6 year old Epson but it is designed to scan negatives, V600 I believe, their software is pretty good. I assume you're just doing prints. A document feeder would be faster but may jam if photos are stuck together and to me seems like it will possibly damage the prints, so a flatbed will take more time but may be better in the long run. I think that will have to be a personal choice of the risk to an individual print vs the time commitment. You can also look to restoration and dust removal technology. Some scanners can use an infrared light to identify and correct dust and scratches, called Digital ICE (BTW this doesn't work on B&W negatives). There is also just software dust removal. Dust isn't as bad of an issue on prints vs negatives because you're not doing enlargement on the same scale, but it can still be a huge problem.

I think your setup for the whole process is going to be as important as the hardware. Figuring out a procedure and location that allows you to minimize dust and organize them appropriately, color correct as needed, etc. Epson has pretty good software in my experience, but I haven't used the cannon so I can't compare.

From what I've looked at, the Epson you linked is supposed to be decent, you definitely don't need a huge dpi number believe it or not. That would be another thing to figure out early on, so you don't waste too much time on each scan but still get a good result. Here is an article I looked at https://www.hamrick.com/blog/what-is-the-best-photo-scanner.html
 
Thanks for your reply, Zerileous. I was originally looking really hard at the V600, but I realized I didn't need the ability to scan negatives or slides. I found the V39 looking at several reviews and that is the one I have purchased. I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but I feel it will make solid copies of all the prints I have. I'm looking forward to playing with the software that can help old polaroids since I have a fair number of faded & mis-colored prints. I also have many Kodak Instamatic prints that look horrible because the camera lens was so bad. I doubt software can help that. lol
There's going to be a lot of work figuring out how to catalog everything before I scan the first picture.
 
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