I have thousands of pictures I need to convert to digital. Is there an easier way than scanning each one?

Answer 1

Get it done by a commercial service. You will spend the rest of your life on this project if you try to do it yourself.

Here's a place that says they will do it for 35¢ a slide scanned to 2,000 dpi, which is decent. The price goes up to 45¢ for 3,000 dpi and 65¢ for 4,000 dpi. They have a $100 minumum order, though, so if you have "only" 150 slides, you may as well go for the highest resolution. When you get your images back, the higher the resolution, the easier they are going to be to work on.

http://www.myspecialphotos.com/scanning.asp

There was an article in PopPhoto about someone who outsourced to India for an even lower price. The service is called ScanCafe. You can read their impression here: http://www.popphoto.com/popularphotographyfeatures/4844/the-24-cent-scan.html
or go to the website directly: http://www.scancafe.com/

They also have some guidelines for do-it-yourself scanning if you are glutton for punishment: http://www.popphoto.com/popularphotographyfeatures/4286/get-your-old-slides-and-negatives-onto-a-scanner.html

Answer 2

If you have a flat, desktop scanner, you can scan multiple prints, as many as will fit on the glass. You can crop and separate the individual prints later.

Some desktop scanners have a feeder tray that can accept a small stack of prints to scan.

I would NOT recommend using a digital camera, as the lighting will be a bit tricky, and, by trying to put multiple prints into a single camera frame will result in disappointing results for, at least, some of them. A scanner, actually, IS nothing more than a digital camera with a single, flat, focal plane. The scanner brings the sensors accross the frame to assure that every piece on the glass is in perfect focus. You can't do that with a digital camera.

Otherwise, the EASIEST way is to pay someone else to scan them for you.

Answer 3

Doing this on a flatbed will waste a load of time and give you a horrible job to do so I'd suggest that it might be worth your while getting a film scanner IF...

You want to get the best quality.
You have LOTS of images and you are definitely determined to digitise them.
You want to spend as little time as possible on the job.

I'd think about how much time this will take and run a comparative test between a film scanner and a flatbed before you make a decision... then cost your time and decide what it's worth to you to save ? minutes per image x ? hundred or thousand images.

Answer 4

You can use a digital camera? It would be a faster.