Bulk scanning photographs

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bob
  • Start date Start date
B

Bob

Would anyone have a suggestion on how to scan a very large number of
4"x6" photographs? I'm looking to scan several thousand and I should
note the negatives aren't available. I'd appreciate any help!
 
I'd do it with digicam of sufficent MP range with copystand setup.
Mark position on shooting surface, place/shoot, place/shoot, etc.

Somebody (HP?) makes an affordable scanner with a feeder I've seen folks
mention here (I think), although most sheetfed scanners are pretty
expensive.

Mac
 
Another possibility is using a flatbed scanner with a sufficiently long
(over 12") bed, scan 4 at a time into PS CS. PS CS will then crop them into
the 4 individual photographs, straighten them, and create 4 images files,
one for each image.

Maris
 
Bob said:
Would anyone have a suggestion on how to scan a very large number of
4"x6" photographs? I'm looking to scan several thousand and I should
note the negatives aren't available. I'd appreciate any help!
Click to expand...

HP makes a vertical scanner (4670?). My daughter has one. Sells for
US$199 street. The scanner portion can be removed and used face down on a
flat surface. The concept is that you can scan 8x11 section(s) of a
large target.

She laid out several 10's of photos on the dining room table - face
up...on a bed sheet so the pics would not shift around on the slick
surface.. She then placed the 'flat' bed scanner on top facing down. The
scanning portion is transparent so that you can see what has moved or
what it is exactly that will be scanned. She then scanned a set of
pictures, moved to a new position - scanned it, etc. Her husband was
behind her picking up the old pics, and placing new. Between them they
did a bazillion pictures in an afternoon. Then she spent the remainder
of the week cropping and pasting.

I haven't asked about the quality of the results.
 
SPeacock said:
HP makes a vertical scanner (4670?). My daughter has one. Sells for
US$199 street. The scanner portion can be removed and used face down on a
flat surface. The concept is that you can scan 8x11 section(s) of a
large target.
Click to expand...
I bought a 4670 at Christmas while visiting my parents and used it to scan
1400 of my mother's old prints in 2 or 3 days, without even using the "carry
it around" feature. Set it up on a card table (flat, so the prints didn't
tend to shift when I closed it) and just kept putting in anywhere from two
to 6 at a time (they were all different sizes) and pushing the button while
watching TV. It took longer to separate the scans later in Photoshop.
(I didn't try to automate that part of the process.)

It worked great, except that there is an occasional problem with banding
with this scanner. HP tells me that running the self-test cures this, but
it doesn't. However, it may have something to do with noise pickup, because
it seems to be sensitive to scanner location.
 
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