Advice on what scanner/printer is best for transferring family photographs.?

Question

I have a life times worth of family photographs, picture slides, negatives, video camera recorded tapes, and video tapes!!!!

All to be transferred onto CD or DVDs

Any advice would be gratefully received!

I am planning to go out and buy a new lap top, and need to get everything else to go with it. So if you were setting up for the first time what would you recommend????

Easy to work - I am not blonde, I am a silver surfer, so need EASY to understand and deal with equipment.

Answer 1

What people seem to have missed is that you say you have picture slides and negatives to scan too.

This will mean that you need to obtain a scanner that has a separate negative scanner as a normal scanner is "reflective", meaning that it uses reflected light to obtain the image it is scanning. This won't work with negatives and slides. You need something that shines light through that media.

Some scanners already have this facility built in, but there are scanners that you can purchase add-on slide/negative scanners for.

Sorry I can't help with brands of scanner that you might find useful, but I felt the need to respond with something that others are obviously missing.

Answer 2

If you are looking to scan pictures into your computer to save onto CD/DVD then look into a stand alone scanner. These will have a much higher resolution than what the all-in-one machines can offer. If you want to print pictures as well as scan them I would suggest looking at the Canon MP600 or the 830. Both of these use individual ink tanks so you only replace what is empty. Compared to any other brand you will find the Canon has a much higher print resolution which is necessary if you want to print pictures worth showing people.

Answer 3

Funny that I should run across this question. As my Mother's Day gift to my three daughters - adults with children of their own - I spent the month before Mother's Day photocopying every old photograph (everything from photos of very old family oil portraits, to Victorian tintypes to early sepia photos to Kodak shots from the 40's and 50's to modern school photos, etc.) It turned out to be a very thick photo essay of SIX generations - a photoessay of a families history that only was possible because SOMEONE SOMEWHERE went to a studio or an portrait artist and had a face immortalized and then WROTE a name on the back of the photo and passed it onto the next generation by PHYSICALLY HANDING it to them before they died. I am totally DEDICATED to the use of the camera that yields an image on paper - hard copy of human data. If you don't have the image in your hand and can visually scan it with our own two eyes and immediately know it's value...it's lost. Old photos are TREASURE - and ONLY if there is a NAME and a date on the back of it.

Answer 4

The Canon range IS good. I've recently ( 6 months ago bought a Canon Pixma MP800 which will deal with your negatives and slides.
I got mine from www.Amazon.co.uk at a reasonable price ( considering what you can do with it). Have a look.

Answer 5

(Does hair color have anything to do with smarts? Mine's gray...) We've had really good luck with HP all-in-one. Scanner/printer, also has card reader to handle memory card from camera, good intuitive software, not all that expensive.

Answer 6

HP Officejet 5610v all-in-one is excellent and inexpensive as well you can get it for under 150.00 at Wal-mart and it has copy, fax, scan and printer