What I mean, and I'm sure there is a technical term I don't know, is a scanner that you feed picture by picture rather than the flat bed style where I have to lift the lid. yeah, yeah, I know it's a minor problem in the scheme of life but I found I DO have to have my printer/scanner plugged into my computer to scan. I can print with it across the room but not scan. grrr...
I have a scanner on my phone that does wonderful scans, Maureen. The quality is amazing! It's My Scan. I know there are some free phone scanners, but I don't think the quality is as good as this one. I even scan legal documents with it.
I had a small photo scanner made by PanDigital 9 years ago that I could feed photos through and it scanned/saved them to a card that I could plug into my computer to transfer the photos later. I spent a weekend at a retreat scanning a lot of my photos from the 60's/70's using it. A quick google search shows that Wal-Mart has one like it for less than $40.00. This scanner would only do photos 4x6 or smaller. I did the bulk of my photos using it. Good enough that I have a digital copy and I have been able to digi scrap them. https://www.walmart.com/search?query=pandigital&cat_id=1229749
I borrowed a Doxie Go (https://www.amazon.com/Doxie-Go-SE-...pY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU&th=1) from a friend to scan photos of my dad for his 90th birthday. It did a decent job for the most part ... a few photos scanned unevenly, but I was able to crop them to square them up.
I have the Epson Fastfoto, FF-640 and it works great. Just before the DYD I scanned 30 years of Christmas Photos in about an hour. You can scan batches of 30 at a time. I was then able to scrap scads of Christmas layouts for a book I was making. The hardest part was taking the photos out of old albums and photo boxes and sorting them into years. Back in the 70s we might have two or three photos for the whole holiday. Film and developing was costly back then. A lot of the photos were blurry and faded but the scanner has a software feature that fixes the old photos reasonably well. Good luck. One problem I did encounter was how it scanned matte finished photos. The slight matting was actually evident in the scans. Good luck.
Carol @Iowan I hadn't planned to spend that much money but seeing videos of it working helped me decide I would get my money's worth out of it. Time is money. Thanks so much for sharing that product. It's my gift to me! @Cherylndesigns I too have several scanning apps on my phone but for me that's only useful for one or a couple at a time. I have boxes and many more in albums. Since my son has done so much of the genealogy work, I'm going to this part as an inheritance gift for him (and maybe his brother if he's ever interested).
@cookingmylife gosh darn it, your thread was the push I needed to get a scanner. I'm sitting here right now, watching NCIS with my parents and scanning the old photos they brought me. I got the Canon Perfection V39. It isn't expensive but it's doing what I need.
Thanks @Tree City Are you connected to a laptop - directly or to an scared while doing that scanning? I've looked at the other ones like the ones @HavaDrPepper @Memaw2Wm mentioned but my iMac doesn't have a card reader.
@cookingmylife Card readers are cheap. Most connect by USB port so if your iMac has one of those, you could get a card reader that reads many different sizes of cards. I've had one for years since none of my computers (til this newest one) have a card slot. When I had to clean out my office to get new flooring, I found cards that I had no idea what was on them. They were from cameras that I no longer had. The card reader could read them and I could determine if I still needed to keep them.
@cookingmylife Many of the familysearch centers have batch and flatbed scanners you can use for free. Just take a 16gb or larger USB drive or EHD to store your scanned photos. I need to get organized and go scan photos at the center near me. I’m not sure where you live, but you can find a location at this link. Contact them to make an appointment to use one of the scanners. Hope that helps. https://www.familysearch.org/help/fhcenters/locations/
Thank you @HavaDrPepper & @keepscrappin for those suggestions. It turns out we do have a Family Search center nearby but right now it looks as if they have printers that also scan, which is what I have right now and which is not the most efficient for me with a large group of images. I do plan to go visit sometime. At the moment, I am not ready to start this as I have more cleaning out of other paperwork to deal with. I wish I were ready but Dick's cancer made a lot of last year a kind of limbo state for me. I was also hoping that a new easier scanner would get him - who has lots of free time also - to do an album or two or at least all of the photos he's taken that were pre-digital and are in print form. He would also remember what those photos represent and I might figure a way to 'teach him' how to insert metadata. LOL... teaching an old man is not always the easiest thing!
Yes, it connects directly via a USB cord. You install the software and then plug it in and you're all set.
@Tree City I'm back to the space I have connecting another thing to my iMac - which does not travel! It's always something, says me and Roseanna Dandanna....
From reading what you are saying, I am getting the feeling that portability and space saving is important to you. If that is the case, something like I suggested is the way to go. Then get the card reader to connect to the iMac when you want to download the photos. With that, because of how small and portable it is, you can scan anywhere at any time as long as an electric plug is nearby. I took mine to a retreat once and spent several hours scanning photos. Maybe the actual scanning is something your husband could do. He could also write down what he remembers about those photos as he is doing it. Just a thought.
That's such a good idea! I might steal this for myself. DH has some old photos; IDK the stories behind them, but he wants to start digitizing them ... seems like I picked out the scanner. He can do the rest.
Just adding my favorite to the list of suggestions! I've had this for several years and love it! Worth the $$ investment https://bit.ly/2SG4FbK