Interesting Option for us Digi-Scrappers

[ColleenSwerb]

Ok, so I KNOW I'm not the only one who's got boxes of pictures sitting around the house from before digital cameras (which really wasn't that long ago, if you think about it.....scary).

ANYWAY. I came across a topic over at MSA about sending those photos out to have a company scan them for you and put them on DVD's. Someone else posted a link to Janet Phillip's blog and a post from last May where she talked about this place: scanmyphotos.com

Has anyone else ever done this? I would LOVE to go through photos with my mom and send a box out and be able to scrap lots of picture from when I Was a kid. And maybe get my grand parents to fork over some pics so I could get a head start on some sort of heritage album. I was just curious if anyone has done this, or has any thoughts on it. Janet Phillips was way impressed, and that speaks volumes to me.

[jorgies5]

Do you know if they scan in negatives too? I think I would rather go that route. I have a negative scanner on my printer, but I can never make the time to do it. All of my old photos in my old scrapbooks are cut in shapes and sizes (from the good old days of paper scrapbooking) that I would consider ruined and really would NOT want scanned. With the negatives, I could get all of the photos back into their original state. Maybe I should look into it!

[ColleenSwerb]

Jenny they do indeed do negative scanning, but it's a separate option.

Here ya go

Personally I was thinking of doing the flat rate box (shipping included in the $99.95 price) and going in on it with my mom. You can put over 1600 pictures in the box (Janet did like 2200), but they have to be standard sizes (no strange shapes, just squares or rectanles). But you can put anything between 3x4 to 8x12 in the box to be scanned.

[ditzyscrap]

I'd be scared to send away all my precious original photos in the mail!!

I want to get a scanner with a photo feed on it (you just stack them up and it feeds them in one at a time), that will do negatives as well. Epson made one a few years ago and I can't find it now!

One time I told my mom to bring all her albums, I wanted to scan in my childhood photos - I worked about an hour at it, did like 4 photos...looked at the 400+ other photos I had to do and quit. LOL!

[ColleenSwerb]

You do get all the photos back from them, with the dvd's of the scanned images.

I mean mine are just sitting in boxes. I don't even have the energy to paper scrap all of them. Aside from Hybrid stuff I've almost completely converted to digi it seems. I figure I might as well do something with what I've got. (Plus I can only take SO MANY pics of my dog around the house, lol, it gets a little old sometimes.)

[ditzyscrap]

Originally Posted by BrodoNY0123

You do get all the photos back from them, with the dvd's of the scanned images.

I know, I meant if something happened to the box of photos - got lost, damaged, broke open and spilled all over...I don't trust the mail all that much, can you tell? LOL!

[joelsgirl]

i was goign to do that for my Christmas present, but my mom has all my childhood pictures in albums, so that would be a lot of work for her to pack them up and then have to put them back. I think I'm goign to do it when I'm home this coming Christmas. Thanks for linking up to the website; I'm going to bookmark it.

[ColleenSwerb]

No problem Kellie

Bree I def understand where you're coming from. I guess I just look at it from the point of view that if they are just sitting in boxes in my closet, then no one is looking at them anyway. So if they get lost, which of course would be awful and I'd be upset, I'd probably get over it since I wasn't exactly looking at them or using them all the time anyway, you know?

But then again, I only have a few years worth of prints (some from high school, a bunch from college), and nothing too major (like kids births or something), lol.

[ditzyscrap]

Yeah, Mason's birth until he was 2 is all in photos, and I think Natalie's birth and a little bit after. I have scanned some of them in and scrapped them digitally...need to do it more often!

[jaylensmom]

oh i may have to try this out...

[ColleenSwerb]

I emailed my mom and I just have to convince her that the pics won't get lost. I'll pay extra for delivery confirmation and tracking if I have to (which is an option when you take it back to the post office, and I would imagine it would not be that much more). YAY!

Now I'm excited!! I can get my childhood pics scrapped, my pics from high school like prom and of my best friend who passed, pics from college. The possibilities are endless! wOOt!!

[ajf9597]

This sounds great! I can't wait to see what you have to say when you get them back. Keep us updated.

[kscwgirl]

If you dont' have a TON of photos, there is another option... www.scancafe.com... they do negatives, and photos and they charge per photo... and you can choose which pics you actually want burned to cd once they scan them.. they only charge you for what you want scanned, and Kellie, I believe you can just ship them your albums w/o taking the pics out....

[lmccandless]

Great information here! I am going to give this a try...so much better than doing it myself!

[Sue Setiadji]

Firstly - I think any method of getting your old photo's into scrappable form is worth acting on!
I scan mine in from slides/ negatives or originals and I find the most time consuming issues for me are finding the photo/slide in the first place (or sorting through them) and secondly the post processing work to get them into a scrappable pic that Im happy with. Im not sure this process would save me a lot of time in that respect since Id still have to sort them and would then need to post process to my own satisfaction.
If sending them off motivates you to get those pics sorted and on disc then Id say go for it - you'll love having them to play with! (there are some great scanners out there that'll do the job for you but if you never get around to it then thats a mute point!)
If you wanna see a quickly post processed slide Ive scanned (a very poor coloured one with dirt spots all over it and not terribly clear) using my Canon check this one out for comparison Party.

[Priscilla]

this is a neat option - saves me the trouble

[Paula]

I scan my own photos. Due to the nature of DH work, they have a top of the line scanner that can scan wall sized photos. So, he takes them for me and scans them.

[Amber1279]

I tried to talk my mom into it when Janet first posted that blog. I really want to do it. I think I could fill a box with just my photos, although it would be great to have my mom's pics as well.

[SaraAmarie]

I have scaned my own and am happy doing it that way so far. My scanner isn't the best but it works ok. I like to be able to have them sorted and just scan what I would be working on.

Have you seen the quality of either of these places? My aunt had some old photos that she had scanned locally and they were not good quality! Alot of them were blurry or had dust spots. I'm guessing these bigger online places are good quality but if you do it locally, just make sure they do a good job!

[twentytinytoes]

I've been working at scanning my own in and scrapping them. We didn't own a digital camera when the kids were born so thats a pain! LOL Seems like a lot of money when I could do it myself, Ill just say i am getting 100$ and spend it on something I really want LOL

[ColleenSwerb]

Sara, I can't speak for the quality myself, but from Janet's blog (and another she linked to in her post) the quality is really excellent. No dust spots, 300dpi, etc.

I'm going to convince my mom tonight. Then I'll order the box, and bring it home with my pictures to NY, and go through boxes wtih my mom next weekend. Ideally we would have them back by the time we get back from vacation on 2/3!

So I'll let you know

[ajf9597]

Just wondering if anyone tried this yet and how they turned out?

[ColleenSwerb]

I bought the big box and spent a few days at home in NY going through my mom's photo boxes. I'll be mailing it to CA tomorrow and should (hopefully) have everything back within a week (hopefully sooner )!!

[ajf9597]

Please post when you get back what you think, would love to see some pictures posted

[beaucat]

I do remember at some point in the past someone posting that the scans from that site lost some detail in the dark areas - (I think she may have had a black dog and the scanned photos lost a lot of detail.) I was too scared of having the mail lose my pictures to try it...

I have an HP scanner that comes off of the base to be completely flat - I lay it over top of the albums and scan - that way I don't have to remove the photos from the albums (I do lift up the plastic cover sheet though.) It made scanning my baby album a LOT faster since I could scan on a page rather than a photo basis.

Angela

[rachelv]

I've wanted to do this also, but I don't want to mail my pics away. SO, I'm waiting for the Kodak scan van to come to an area near me.

http://scanvan.kodakgallery.com/moreinfo

[scarletheels]

Cool beans. I'd never heard of either of those companies before. Now I just have to twist my mom's arm to go in on it with me. I hear ya - all of my photos are sitting in photos boxes. Back when I paper scrapped, I the best of intentions to scrap with them. Yeah, right!