An efficient way to transfer print photographs digitally
Q. I have 30 years’ worth of pictures, taken of my family and places we visited. I used a 35 mm camera and have both the printed pictures in albums and the original negatives.
Do you know of a source I could go to so that I can learn how to convert the images from print to a digital format for storage on a computer and/or DVD?
A. This is really quite easy to do. I can walk you through it here.
The first thing you need is a scanner. I recommend the Epson Perfection V550, which currently sells for $169. I’ve been using one myself lately and absolutely love it.
It costs a bit more than an all-in-one unit, but the advantages are well worth it, especially for a job like yours which will involve hundreds or even thousands of photographs.
The Epson Perfection V550 scan quality is outstanding, with vivid color, incredible sharpness and a lack of inaccurate color casts.
My scans and the prints I made from them look like the original photographs, which is exactly what you want from a scanner.
It can also scan negatives and slides with its illuminated back, and automatically fix defects in the pictures with the Easy Photo Fix and DIGITAL ICE software.
It can also upload automatically to the Internet.
Though the technical quality is outstanding, what makes the Epson Perfection V550 so great for this kind of duty is its ability to scan multiple photographs at the same time.
Just arrange the photographs on the glass, close the cover and hit the scan button. It will scan everything and automatically create a separate .jpg image for each individual photograph. It is easy to do the math and realize what a big deal this is.
Assuming you are using standard 3.5-by-5-inch or 4-by-6-inch print sizes, scanning three or four photographs at a time compared to scanning each one individually will cut your time scanning to a third or a fourth what it would have been; or considered from a productivity standpoint, you can scan 300 to 400 photographs in the time it would normally take to scan a mere 100 photographs.
See it at tinyurl.com/ epson550scanner.
Once you have the scanner, install all the software from the included disc, connect the scanner with the USB cable and plug it in.
Launch the Epson Scan software, then select a destination folder for your scans. I recommend you create folders by date or subject name on the desktop, scan groups of images and direct them to the folder.
If your pictures are organized in albums it should be easy to keep them organized digitally as well. Lay the pictures on the glass and click the automatic scan button.
The Perfection V550 will scan all the photographs, create separate images and put them in the folder.