So you finally moved into the 21st century and got yourself a digital camera. But what about all those boxes full of loose photos that are cluttering your basement. This might just be the perfect time to finally purchase a photo scanner. Spring cleaning can be made much easier with this simple piece of technology.
For those of you who are not familiar with photo scanners they function like a copy machine, but instead of printing out paper copies they digitize photographs, slides, negatives and other records for you to store on your computer. Which means pictures of your son’s first birthday, his first pony ride and his high school graduation along with a shot of your husband’s first car can be at your fingertips by scanning the images on your machine. Once your images are digitized, a trip down memory lane only requires a few clicks of your mouse.
These days most name brand scanners come with photo-editing software, which is often bundled with third-party products such as Adobe Photoshop Elements. You can use it to enhance and organize your images or transfer them to documents, invitations or thank you cards.
As for how much you will need to shell out to get one, I’ve found some new scanners selling for less than $150. That amount of money will typically get you a standard flatbed scanner void of the bells and whistles included on fancier models.
A word of warning before purchasing a scanner: Don’t think you can scan an entire box of photos in one sitting. The process is extremely time consuming. Most basic model scanners can accommodate four standard-size prints at once, but the task requires about four minutes. Now times that by a box that contains 500 or more photos and you can see where your day will be spent. Archiving an entire box worth of images in one sitting is a daunting task. And while you could opt to purchase a more expensive model–scanning speeds do increase slightly on higher priced models—the extra dollars mostly go towards higher quality lenses, mirrors, sensors and software that make for clearer images.
In my next blog I will detail some of the features you should consider prior to buying a photo scanner.
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