Digitising old family photos - efficiently

Sniipe

The scanner process is slow

• Get pictures
• Fit them onto the scanner
• Preview the page - wait 15 seconds
• Select the pictures
• Rescan the page - wait a minute
• Rotate pictures if needed
• Remove pictures
• repeat

I was thinking of creating a rig. The rig would have a camera looking down to an A4 area which would have anti-glare glass hinged. Then perhaps 3 soft lights. The process could be quicker.

• Get pictures
• Lift glass
• fit them onto A4 area
• close glass
• press remote for camera
• remove pictures

Post processing to select and crop pictures out. I assume this type of software exists.

The reason for the hinged anti glare glass is because some of the pictures might not be 100% flat and this would flatten them.

I]ninja edit[/IThere are thousands of pictures in different dimensions. What do ye feel the best way to approach this? I don't have the cash to get it professionally done, nor the time to sit beside a scannerI]/ninja edit[/I

magicbastarder

Sniipe wrote: »

The scanner process is slow

• Get pictures
• Fit them onto the scanner
• Preview the page - wait 15 seconds
• Select the pictures

if i'm reading you right here, i can see one way of speeding the process up - are you selecting the images in the scanner UI?
why not load as many pics onto the platter as you can and just scan them all at once, and crop in whatever your photo editing software is afterwards?

Ken.

Maybe something like this might speed up your process https://www.amazon.com/Pandigital-PANSCN09PU-Handheld-Scanner-Station/dp/B00ADP9XEQ

tricky D

Is there really any need to preview them. Maybe for the first one or two scans but after that it shouldn't be required. After that it's just keep on doing File→Automate→Crop and Straighten Photos for as many as fit on the scanner.

Sniipe

magicbastarder wrote: »

if i'm reading you right here, i can see one way of speeding the process up - are you selecting the images in the scanner UI?
why not load as many pics onto the platter as you can and just scan them all at once, and crop in whatever your photo editing software is afterwards?

That would indeed speed it up. However, it is still only 3 10x15 pictures which still takes a minute to scan. I think the other way might still be considerably quicker because I intend to enlist others to form a production line... and blitz the process in a day.

ED E

If this wasnt ?500 thats what I'd be buying.

CabanSail

A few points.

Using the scanner;

You can scan multiple images at a time.

You do not need to preview each time.

If it's taking a minute to scan then you may have the resolution set too high for the task.

In the alternate approach;

Using non-reflective glass will add softness to the images.

There can be distortion added to the images depending on the lens and it's location.

Sniipe

Hey CabanSail, perhaps I'm overthinking it. What would be a sufficient DPI for a photo to be scanned at?

Sniipe

ED E wrote: »

http://www.scantastik.com/hardware/fujitsu/images/ix500-front.jpg

If this wasnt ?500 thats what I'd be buying.

I actually bought something like this. It didn't work as well as I wanted. The document feeder is excellent for A4, but not so much for 10x15's and other photo sizes

magicbastarder

Sniipe wrote: »

Hey CabanSail, perhaps I'm overthinking it. What would be a sufficient DPI for a photo to be scanned at?

usually 300dpi is sufficient; 600dpi if they're especially sharp.
depends on your intended use too; if you're just scanning them to share online, no need at all to go above 300.

Sniipe

magicbastarder wrote: »

usually 300dpi is sufficient; 600dpi if they're especially sharp.
depends on your intended use too; if you're just scanning them to share online, no need at all to go above 300.

hmm, 300 was what it was at. Perhaps its just a slow scanner...

ED E

Sniipe wrote: »

I actually bought something like this. It didn't work as well as I wanted. The document feeder is excellent for A4, but not so much for 10x15's and other photo sizes

Same or similar? The ix500 is sold for receipts of all sizes etc.

Sniipe

In the end - I scanned a few pictures onto an A4 image and used Gimp in conjunction with DivideScannedImages. Its not perfect unfortunately. It gets it right 90% of the time... but its difficult to then figure out which 10% it got wrong and that need to be manually processed.

I then find I need to tweak another 10% because they are not straight or not cut enough.

CabanSail

Sounds like a good result. Thanks for the update.