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Mothers Day is around the corner and I wish to buy a gift for my Mother, where she could scan the trunks full of photos she has. Some of them are in cappia tone, that are from the days of Custer ( 1876 ) and even some old European pictures of my great great grandfather from Vogtland,Prussia.As well as other unknown photos with German writing on them. These will be archived for my sons, and all family members as we get together this summer for our annual re union.

My parents are very ancient and this must be simple. I know my parents will have a great time sorting through everything, and it will be the first time anyone has archived something like this in our family. I am hoping to get one where all pic's could be stored on a USB flash stick, and I could copy then to a HDD, and make copies for all of the family.

Since you guys have turned me into a PC musician, I am sure you could give further great advice on these matters.

Thank You In advance,

Dear Jimmy,

I can't give you any advice cos I never used a scanner (!!!), but I can tell you, that Vogtland never was a part of Prussia but of Saxonia, Thuringia and Bavaria.
(I will keep this secret for me, cos I fear, if the inhabitants of Vogtland hear about your little confusion, they all will come to Las Vegas and then ... good luck, Jimmy.

Cheers, Thomas

Thanks,
I only has an ancient map which I couldn't confirm, but your name tells me you know what's up. I do have some interesting pics of my great uncles in lederhosen. They are the reason I learned the accordian, and piano.

I shall continue my quest, thanks.

There is not any relation between Vogtland and Herr Voigt, but I was a good pupil in geography.
Accordion is a fine and versatile instrument, a friend of mine can rock with it that my brain was blown away. But when somebody plays Volkstümliche Musik, I immediately run away. Hollahi! Yodeldideldö!

Hi Scope4live, sounds like a great idea!

I am not a pro scanner-user, but am using mine on a regular basis for both images and text, with good results.

I would recommend you to get one of those with a set of programmable buttons on the front, I know that Canon and HP does these, and probably Epson too.

This way, you will be able to set it up so that she only has to place the image in the scanner and then push the button - scanning, including resolution settings, cropping, colour correction (if needed) and placement of the file on the HDD is then done automatically.

You can even program different buttons to different types of images, depending on the variety, but you will probably have do to a bit of experiments to get it fully operational, but it is no big deal.

I am using a Canon scanner, 3-4 years old now, which is able to do all this, and it didn't cost a fortune, so it will probably be chaper - and better - today.

If she has negatives too, they can be scanned as well with most scanners, at least if they are in 35 mm format. Bigger formats may require a more expensive scanner.

By my humble opinion, the technical stuff you should be looking for is roughly this:
Optical resolution : 1200 DPI or better -make sure that this is NOT interpolated (achieved by the software afterwards) Some will easily do more that this at virtually no extra cost, eg 4800 x 9600 DPI, but this will probably only increase the filesize since the originals are probably not extremely detailed to begin with.
Colour depth : 48 Bit
Noise reduction: some scanners are also scanning simultaneoulsy with infra red light, which will detect dust and scratches, and automatically remove it from the file.
USB 2.0 - very nice if the images are big, and your mothers PC has it too.
A lid that can lift and accept, say, a book without letting in light at one end
Software that can save in multiple formats, jpeg, tiff, pdf, bmp should be the thing to look out for - in my opinion.
Max scanning size: Most will do slightly larger than 210 x 297 mm (A4), I believe that this is called "Letter" in the US?
The beforementioned programmable buttons.

I hope that this is of help to you, and I will be happy to assist as best I can.

Good luck
Stubbe

let me refine a little bit:

there are most likely no slides or negatives involved, so both resolution and color bit deepth don't matter too much.
Otherwise it would be the slides to define requirements.
since you don't need it for a print publishing job, color precision can be ignored as well.

The latter does NOT mean that the color isn't nicely scanned - it only means that it's not converted to a format which later yields exactly that color on a certain type of paper in a certain print process.
Industry grade color calibration is what makes a system (software and hardware) expensive.

an affordable, quality brand type like the ones mentioned fulfills easily what's required. A good lens would be better than high resolution (which photo-prints don't have anyway, unless some quality B&W stuff from the past)

convenience of operation may be more important - but more difficult to find out pre-sales
how long does a preview take ? how long a full page ?
can it automatically separate several pictures scanned simultaneously ?

cheers, Tom

Gee, Thanks 4 The Serious Details My Brothas',

I am hoping that she can download to a USB stick, 8GB's actually, then send them to me for the making of a " V " family history album. The USB 2.0 connection should work fine, but I should probably set the machine up myself, then send it.

Top notch answers were very much appreciated guys, thanks again.


And Unto You I Shall Split The Earth, And You Will Never Hear Surf Music Again,


Jimi Hendrix,...3rd Stone From The Sun.

use Epson here. good software: I give a directory and a basic name and the sw counts upwards.
Anyway, whatever you take, check it out first for easy task define.
Software to light up etc. Photoshop essential or have a look at FixFoto.