My father in law recently passed away. While cleaning his house, that's a whole story in itself my wife and the auction company found boxes and boxes of old pictures. My wife wants to send some to other family members but I was thinking of digitizing them first so she can post them on some sort of photo sharing site.
If anyone has use a company I would appreciate your input.
Thanks.

I've used a desktop copier/scanner, and digitized hundreds of photos. I'm not sure what a third party company like Legacy Box charges, but it might be worth getting a reasonably priced copy/scanner and do them yourself.

Never used a service but I have been doing my own for a longtime. I use an Epson V600 and have a slide scanner.

I've also always done my own. I got a good Canon scanner that does a great job.
It also allows scanning negatives and slides.

I would think a service would be a lot more expensive in the long term.

Yep, DIY with a scanner. It’s that simple. Then, you can share the pics with others by emails or by uploading them to some photo hosting site.

Decent lighting, a tripod and any decent phone camera could preserve the memories, family members could see the picture of a picture and determine if they wanted the actual photo?. If the idea is to digitize then toss the original, taking a picture or scan will capture most of the resolution I would imagine. I enjoy looking through old photos of school and trips (slides are tougher), pinch and zoom doesn't work so well though.

We are facing the same task. XYL's mother is going through all her boxes and giving us the valuable old photos and slides because we would surely love to see them. We would.

For any task, I've been asking AI helpers for guidance. There are many aspects of this task you may not recognize, and AI will share them in a moment with you.

I'm leaning towards a service for slide digitization. The service does AI based color correction, removes mold, and also gives up to 20% rejections because of focus or other issues that make that slide not worthy. It's about four bits ($0.50) per slide.

I've used Legacybox for videos, was very pleased, and am lined up to use them for slides/photos for my next project. I have several scanners and know well how to use them, but due to the large number of photos, but I am focusing my personal efforts on just the few that need special attention.

If you decide to go with a service and are considering Legacybox, be aware that they have frequent sales and be sure to wait for one.

Any printer scanner can do it or if you prefer, you can get a dedicated scanner.

Thank you everyone for the replies.

I started looking into prices on a dedicated picture scanner. The scanner we currently have now is way to slow for the amount of pictures we have.

The idea of using a service might just make it easier/less time consuming for us however it might just be to expensive to make it worth it compared to just buying a dedicated scanner.

I regularly use a ScanSnap ix1300. It has a front slot feed and can scan to iPhone app.
Can’t get any easier.

I have the same task ahead of me, having lost both my parents within the last year. I am interested in doing them myself on premise vs risking loss in the mail. I just wish there were a clear winner for the scanner for either:

1. Very high speed slot feed where you can gun them through one after the other, or
2. Flat bed scanning where you can put six photos on at a time and the software would automatically chop them into individual files and drop them into a folder.

Of my research thus far, I'm leaning to the Epson FastFoto FF-680W

I recently did this for my son's funeral. I used CamScanner as an app on my iPhone. Put photo on table, snap picture and save, CamScanner crops out anything not the photo and sharpens the picture. We then shared them on Google Photos so that all of the family can view them. I used the free version for several hundred photos, they also have a paid service.

Good luck with saving and sharing those memories.

I bought a ScanSnap IX500 to digitize hundreds of photos. The document feeder allowed me to stack 20 or so at a time. No carrier is required. Highly recommend
Mike

Bought a ScanSnap Ix1600 and it made quick work of many albums and boxes of pictures I had. It could handle snapshots, Polaroids and other odd sizes.

quote:

I started looking into prices on a dedicated picture scanner. The scanner we currently have now is way to slow for the amount of pictures we have.

I have a ScanSnap ix1600, it's great for scanning documents. But for photos, I use an Epson FastFoto 680W.. It's specifically meant for scanning stacks of color photos, like 4x6 size or so. Since it's sheet-fed, you can put in a whole stack to be done very quickly. Because it's built for photos, it won't mess them up, and no carrier sheet is needed.

The big advantage is that the built-in FastFoto software does this:
1. Scans both sides of each photo
2. Creates a second version of the photo side which automatically corrects the color for old, faded photos
3. Uses the back side scan data--usually handwritten name of the subject, place, date--and it links it to the front side photo.

I don't use it for delicate old family photos, or ones too large for the ca. 8x10 max size of the FastFoto. For that I use a flatbed scanner. There are two I recommend:
The Epson Perfection V39 II, which works for up to 8x10 size; and the Plustek Os 1180 large format flatbed scanner (max 11.7x17 inch).
Prices:
FastFoto new about $600; you can find refurbished ones at Epson.com for $400, the work fine.
Plustek OS 1800: $349 on Amazon

Plustek on Amazon

I had thousands of family photos to scan, so using a service would have been exorbitant. I ended up importing scanned photos into Lightroom. There I can view the data on the back of the photo and enter it (manually) into Lightroom as keywords, or with subject or location. Then I can later look for Uncle Harry by searching keywords. Or Cragun's Resort if someone wrote that on the back.

Project turns out to be pretty monumental.

Think of how many photos you have, how many you really really want to scan and save; what condition they are in. You could go with a FastFoto for big boxes of snapshot size photos; then send larger or more delicate ones off to a service to scan.

Scanning slides is another issue.

I use a camera and a tripod. This is my mother sometime in the late 1930's or early 1940's. Note the egg carton and the toaster in the upper right of the photo.



My mother and my favorite aunt in Yellowstone in the early 1940's



My camp in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho on the way home from Sturgis in 1991. I woke up at 3am to ice on everything.

Thank you again everyone.

1 Robert 90, my condolences on your sons passing.

wingspar, very nice picture's.