The Best Way to Preserve Photos in the Shoebox
I have those boxes. You have them too. We’re smart enough to put them in “acid-free” boxes, but the photos are certainly not in a photo album. They are not organized, nice and neat, so that anyone can enjoy them. Technology has rescued us. Here, I’ll list some of the new scanners that will digitize batches of your photos, (inexpensive) and where you can get access to them.
Since I bought my Digital Camera
There he is, in all his digital vintage glory. (For more on posting photos of your children, read this. My solution? I try to post older pictures, so you don’t recognize who I’m actually showing. One nice thing about not having my Mom around is that I don’t have to answer her. I know she’d have something to say about it. Actually, I think she’d say go for it, because she’d be so proud.)
Now, where was I? Right, notice above, I that I said I had all the “digital” photos in the computer. I didn’t own a digital camera until he was 8. So, there’s a lot of his life that is virtual undigitally documented. But, my HP Printer has a scanner. I have been dutifully scanning them in for 4 years now. Once the photo is scanned, I import it into Photoshop and add the date and tags, and it’s part of my on-line digital collection. However, it takes forever to scan the photos. And, these photos have streaks on them from the scanning bar. I guess that’s this century’s version of “vintage” photos. But I have 4 boys now!! I can’t keep this up!! And then, I have the black and white pictures of my Mom’s, and her family and my Grandma. I have lots of scanning to do.
Help has arrived. The The Wall Street Journal reports that there is a slew of new companies offering cheap, quick digitized services. High-speed document scanners with automatic feeders can handle hundreds of photos, letting them charge less to convert the image into digital format. Xerox, Canon and HP all sell scanners in the $1000 range, that can scan 225 to 50 images a minute, the WSJ says. No. You don’t have to run out and buy one. ShoeboxReprints.com, in Irvine, California, can scan 1,000 images for $49.95 and send them back to you on a CD. Once the images are digitzed, you can make more copies, store them, or go to mypublisher, an online photo-book company to create a memory book. Remember though, it is still a scanned image, and it won’t make a great poster. There are bigger, flat-bed scanners for that. Ask a professional photographer about it.
Your local photo store may already own such a scanner. Many of these stores miss you — you haven’t been back since you bought your digital camera, because you’re no longer getting your film processed. So, now, your local photo store is buying these scanners to get you back in the store. If your store doesn’t have one, show them this article, and tell them you’d use it if they offered it. Tell them you would rather bring the photos to them, rather than send them off to California. They are priceless, you know.
Get your shoebox. Convert those photos, and make a very nice Mother’s Day or Father’s Day Gift.
So what do you think? Will google run shoe ads or photography ads on this story. Or will I still have those bat (oops, I probably shouldn’t have said that) ads. They always amaze me. And speaking of photographs, have you been here? Or here? Or to Paris Daily Photo?
Related posts:
Great entry! The arrival of digital photography seems to have created a culture that’s great at taking pictures, but not so great at organizing and archiving them.
As a technology analyst, I think this entry would make a great research note for anyone wanting to get a handle on this large and growing problem. Wonderfully said!
I get short of breath when I think of all the work that needs to be done with our photos!
You have some great pictures, here!
Thanks for stopping by my site. Yes, I still have tons of photos in boxes and cans. I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to putting them digital even though I do have a camera. I’ve been using a digi cam for the past few years and do back those up since its so much easier.
[...] I just need to keep reminding myself, “This is time well spent. Future generations will enjoy these movies forever.” As long as I preserve them right. [...]