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Need Advice: Need to Scan Large Amount of Photos, Postcards, etc.

Need Advice: Need to Scan Large Amount of Photos, Postcards, etc.

Posted: 26 Aug 2014 6:13PM GMT
Classification: Query
(Note: I've also posted this message under the Preserving Documents board, but thought I'd post here, as well, since it seems to get more traffic. (And, quite honestly, because others have also posted photograph questions here that are not specifically photo restoration-related.) I hope that's alright.)

I've inherited my grandmother's and my parents' many photo albums. These, in addition to my own albums, have absolutely overwhelmed me in terms of finding the time to scan the important photos for genealogical purposes and family preservation.

In addition to all of the photo albums, there are many photos by professional photographers, plus all of the photos that I've borrowed from other relatives and then copied. Also, my grandma had a lot of postcards sent to her that she kept, in addition to many greeting cards that go back to the 1920s.

All of the postcards & greeting cards and many of the photos have been put into acid- and PVC-free albums. (I'm still working on the rest.) But I also want to digitize these items. Here lies my dilemma.

I've wondered about the scanners where you feed in the photos. They seem to go quite fast, which is what I'm looking for. But does anyone know if anybody makes a high quality scanner in that format? And what's been people's experience with them?

I do have a flat bed scanner, but it just seems to go so slow--especially when scanning several photos at a time.

I'm just looking for the best advice in dealing with all of this AND in getting high quality results. (Meaning I'm not going to just take pics with my phone. I also don't want to mail my photos to anyone to scan for me, as I don't want to chance anything getting lost.)

Has anyone done this? And if so, do you have any words of wisdom?
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