Buying A Scanner
Do I Need to Buy a Scanner?
Although there are places that you could go to scan photos and documents (i.e. your school, or maybe local library) I would strongly suggest you look into purchasing a scanner of your own if you have a lot of photos to preserve. I remember when I first got my scanner, I was working on a specific project at the time, and my husband thought I would never use my scanner again after that project was finished. Aside from my computer it is probably the most used piece of hardware that we own. I have definitely got my moneys worth out of it and I've only had it for a couple of years.
What Should I Look For When Buying a Photo Scanner?
1.) Look at what format your photos are in and what you will be scanning. Do you have slides, negatives, prints etc.? Make sure you get a scanner that is able to scan these.
2.) Look at scanner resolution. You'll want to get a scanner that has at least 2400 to 3200 dpi if not more if you are scanning slides and negatives.
3.) How fast does the scanner scan? If you have thousands of photos you may want something that is able to scan multiple photos at once, quickly.
4.) Look at other features you may want. Do you want to scan documents, books etc. Do you want to be able to scan these as pdfs?
5.) You'll obviously need to look at your price range. For me, personally I probably wouldn't trust a scanner that was less than $100 unless it was on sale. In this world you pretty much get what you pay for.
6.) Look at the quality of the photos after they are scanned. If you go with a cheaper brand, your photos may not look that great after you scan them. How do you find out if a scanner is good quality if you don't own it? Go to the next step.
7.) Read Reviews! Before you go out an buy a scanner, find one you like and go online and read reviews on that scanner. Other people will tell you what they liked or didn't like about that specific scanner.
A Few Specific Scanners
I have an EPSON Perfection 4490 Photo scanner.
1.) This scanner can scan slides, negatives and prints.
2.) This scanner can scan up to 12800 dpi. Honestly, I never have needed to scan anything at that high of resolution. I scan my slides and negatives at either a 2400 or 3200 dpi. If you're looking to buy a slide or negative scanner you'll probably want one that scans at least 2400 dpi.
3.) This scanner can scan 4 slides or 2 negative strips (8 photos) at once. It can scan 4 slides at 2400 dpi in about 5 min (this was on my old, slow computer) and 2 negative strips at 2400 dpi in about 7 minutes. I'll have to time how fast they scan on my new fast computer.
4.) This scanner can also scan documents straight into a pdf format, which is a VERY nice feature if you are scanning books (scrapbooks, journals, personal histories etc.). Although I haven't played with this feature that much, it also has OCR (optical character recognition). It's basically the ability to scan text in a way that you can edit it on your computer. So if you're scanning a book, you can copy the text on a page, or edit it.
5.) You can get this scanner for about $140.
6.) The quality of the photos after they are scanned is great. I haven't really found any problems with them.
7.) Here is just one site that I randomly found http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1865046,00.asp that has reviews on this scanner. If you google "Epson Perfection 4490 review" you'll find several others.
8.) One more thing about this scanner, it doesn't come with very detailed instructions (there are like 4 steps or something). It took me a while to figure out that when you are scanning slides or negatives, open up the scanner and be sure to take out the white plate that is under the lid. It won't work otherwise. Also when using the scanner program on the computer, I like to work in professional mode. This allows me to change the dpi resolution and choose the format I am scanning in (slides, negatives or prints).
My dad has a Xerox DocuMate 510. This scanner is mainly a document scanner. It scans documents and books very fast. He uses it to scan all of his genealogy documents and books. It can also scan several photo prints at a time.
There are lots of scanners out there. Here's a site http://reviews.cnet.com/1770-5_7-0.html?query=scanner&searchtype=products&seeAll=500200&tag=ltcol;narrow that has several. There are many sites that have reviews out there. Some sites compare specific scanners to others. Some tell you the best scanner in your price range.
Here are a few more scanners. Since I haven't used them all I can't really say if they are good or not. Be sure to read reviews before purchasing a scanner.
