Hi Nomads,

We are slowly tidying up our home and getting rid of a lot of old stuff.

I am wondering is there an app or program I could use where I may scan our old photos from the shoeboxes and store them digitally.

Has anyone done this with there cherished old pics?

Regards

Angie

I have a scanner but always use my Canon 5d2 with a longer lens, it's much quicker. Set aperture at f8. Set up a tripod with camera pointed to the floor near a window with good light but not direct sun light. Place the photo on a larger black background on the floor.

Also I place white board/sheet etc up against the legs of the tripod to even up the light across the photo.

Set up with some reference points so the photos are in the right position and square to the camera every time, get it right to avoid work. 

Use low or native ISO usually 100. Quite often over expose one stop but do not clip highlights. I use mirror lockup and a cable release. Use the timer if you don't have a shutter cable release.

Once setup properly and a few tests you can get through a pile of photos quickly.

I also purchased a cheap slide scanner.
Yes time consuming, but having them digital is a wonderful way of being able to share them, but you also need to file them so that can be easily found as you need them.

Your family will thank you for it in years to come.

Refuelling the Mini in 1967. We were on our way from Adelaide to Darwin for our honeymoon.

The house my grandfather built. My father is standing at the gate, aged 3 years, in 1915. The house is still there and I have shared this pic with the current owners.

Cheers,

Peter

Love the old photo's Peter and Margaret. It is amazing the things we used to do in the younger days . Here is a picture of my great grandmother and her new husband around 1900, after my greatgrandfather shot himself , story was he could not pay the miners wages , in the mine he owned . The new husband got killed on the way home from town , not long after this picture . His buggy hit a log on the road , coming over a rocky ridge .  Luckily I had scanned it , because I had it hanging in my caravan when it got stolen , Got the van back 2years later after many goes of advertising on Gumtree , but the picture was gone .

I photograph slides as well. I have an old Epson 4870 scanner but like all these flatbed scanners you end up with a lot of noise in the shadows with the standard software. The Silver fast Pro software is better but not brilliant, & still very slow.

In a previous life I had access to a Nikon $4000 medium format scanner which was reasonably good & also had scans done on a $80k Scitex scanner. The scans were really good with no noise in the shadows.

So I use an old Mamiya 645 macro lens with extenders to get 1:1 photos, holding slides in a plastic bracket I knocked up to sit in the front of a bellows lens hood. Generally set the camera to faithful lighting.

I point the camera to the sky on a clear blue day which seems to give the best lighting. Once setup & getting the focus correct, photographing slides is quicker than on a scanner & better shadow detail. You can also stack scans or photos to reduce noise but it is more work.

If you do stack transparent layers to reduce noise opacity is 100% (bottom) 50% 33% 25% (top layer). Not 100% 25% 25% 25%.

The best results will be from taking a  high definition photo under diffused light with a High megapixel Camera. Can be very time consuming but for the best result the way to go.

Another alternative is to purchase a dedicated Film/Photo/Slide scanner from someone like Kogan. Every so often the scanners they sell are put up on special at aprox half normal price.

Work reasonably well with good results.

I have friend who built a Wooden Jig/holder  to hold his phone and the photo at the right distance apart to give a fair result. High megapixel camera is obviously a better bet.

Transfer to your computer and save to whatever folder you use.

Scanning slides is a lot more difficult especially if they are Fuji Velvia with very deep shadows.

Scanning photos is easy but you may want to increase local sharpness. Say 10 to 20% max, 50 to 100 pixels radius. You can also copy a layer & change it to Luminosity & sharpen that layer. Doing this you will not sharpen colour artefacts.

Sometimes doubling the size of the image, sharpen, then half the size. This can help if you are trying to pull out some details.

Slides have fantastic resolution  - up to 2000 dpi

On my Epson 750, can set up to scan 12 slides unattended,   as each slide takes a few minutes to scan , 12 slides take up too one hour.

Also need to use a small air puffer to remove dust, which shows up as black dots on the image

Just a comment - any valuable photos I would keep the paper copy .

Digital storage is not long reliable, without special regular "maintenance"
Generally , There is no tech that will last longer than 5 years, including hard drives cds etc .
Hard drives are very susceptible to physical damage with just a bump.
Data decays on SSDs and usb sticks.

There is various claims about storage ability for much longer, but this can be easily damaged by in proper storage, heat, bit rot etc
And whether we have tech with needed interface or format to read in future is not certain.
Paper photos have easily survived 30, 40 years and much longer just sitting in a cupboard. Digital is unlikely to last this time

(I do data recovery on hard drives , SSDs and convert old formats )

I thought I would have a look at a few decades old photos printed from slides onto Cibachrome. I forgot just how good the images were and the quality of Cibachrome.