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Ask HN: Best way to digitize old photographs

2 points by balderdash ↗ HN
I’ve recently come into possession of a large number of old family photos, some of which are just prints others are groups are prints and negatives (let’s say more then 500 less than 1500).

I’m inclined to youse a service as I don’t really want to spend the time manually scanning all of these (nor do I want to invest in two scanners for a one time project) but am a little wary trusting such a project to some company found on the internet.

Any suggestions / recommendations?

7 comments

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markbsigler
I bought a flat bed scanner and while the quality was good it was very slow. Since then I have been using Google PhotoScan app on my iPhone.
balderdash
Do you know what type quality you can print from with the scan apps - there’s likely some small subset they’d I’d like to be able to print/frame it seems like a good option if I just wanted to keep them electronically though
fuzzfactor
>Best way to digitize old photographs

Lovingly and carefully on a flatbed scanner.

All kinds of people are giving away the printer/flatbed combos once they fall into disuse, lots of times because the ink is too expensive. Plenty of them will still scan when the ink is empty, even if they can't be used as an office copier any more.

You can't really say for sure every time, but you have to figure that each unique photo took one or more people way more time in its creation and preservation so far compared to the insignificant amount of time it would take to scan it.

meristohm
I've settled on getting rid of as many of the photos as possible first, then just taking a photo, either with Google PhotoScan or my iPhone default camera if the light is right for no glare. We don't put up a lot of photos, and the value in them is mostly to remember a situation more clearly (I'm not sold on the value of this), so fidelity isn't that important.

Further thoughts- I'm inspired by Sinéad O'Connor who in an interview said she doesn't take photographs anymore, because it kept getting in the way of the moment. It's okay to forget. However,

I'm curious why I still cling to the photos I have. Does it have something to do with my family being so scattered over the US, and the family oral tradition being just filaments of a once-strong web? (going back pre-photography here)

As I get older and my sense of duty around raising my child and keeping myself healthy for that deepens, I care less and less about keeping old journals (all of which I will burn eventually, whether or not I skim them) and photos.

Why do you want to digitize the photos and negatives?

balderdash
These are mostly photos that are ~20-60 years old of family members (many of whom are no longer around) I rarely take photos myself anymore, but it seems wrong somehow to just trash them - it’d be nice to be able to pass them on to future or younger generations, and have some small subset reprinted etc.
beardyw
I found that negatives were often disappointing for some reason. Scanning good prints may work better for you.

Did 2,500 with a negative scanner. It took ages, mostly my wife. Then updated exif to roughly the right date. Loading them into Google photos they all fell into the dates given. I can scroll back to 1970! Don't worry I still have the originals.

simonblack
If you have negatives, get a special negative scanner. I have an old (2001?) Canon SCSI scanner. That's your best method. Then color-correct the resulting images with GIMP or Photoshop.

If you only have prints, scan them at high resolution on a flatbed scanner. Then color-correct the resulting images with GIMP or Photoshop.

Both of these methods are slow. But it's a one-off job. Once it's done, it's done.