If you have ever tried to archive boxes and boxes of old photos, film or slides in a single afternoon then you might have asked yourself that very question. I know I have. When my cousin bought a new scanner years ago I offered to help her organize old family photos so that she could archive them on her computer. She had three shoeboxes filled with loose pictures mainly from the 1970s that she wanted to scan in a single day. We both figured it would take no more than four hours to complete. Boy, were we wrong.
Try four hours and 616 minutes.
No doubt about it scanning mass quantities of photos is a time consuming task.
In a previous blog I mentioned that higher end scanners (which can cost up to 10 times the amount of standard flatbed scanners) can handle dozens of negative frames at once. However, if you decide to purchase a more expensive model know that scanning speeds do increase slightly, but the extra money mainly goes towards equipping the device with higher quality lenses, mirrors, sensors and software that make for clearer images.
With that said if you are purchasing a scanner with the intent that it will serve primarily as a tool to archive multiple boxes of slides or negatives you are in luck. Nikon makes a great product called the Super CoolScan 5000 ED. It retails for $1,000 and claims to be capable of 20-second scans at 4,000 dpi. Sounds great doesn’t it? It might not if you consider that a stack of 3,000 slides will still take more than 16 hours to scan.
Another option you could consider is a slide or film feeder. Priced at about $450 a feeder will help ease your burden by allowing scans of up to 50 slides or 40 negative frames automatically before re-loading.
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Digital Photography 101: Let’s Review—Photo Printing
Digital Photography 101: Printing Your Pictures
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Digital Photography 101: More Printing Options