How to Easily Scan All Your Old Prints

Other than digitizing (and organizing) my several-thousand-CD-collection (not to mention my DVDs), I can think of no greater hassle than scanning and storing (and organizing) all my print pictures on my desktop. And yet, it must be done, since I've already lost hundreds of prints from humidity, age, and just plain disorganization. I'm sure there are plenty of you out there who love to make photo albums—not this guy—but let's face it: Making photo albums is infinitely more exciting than scanning photos (at least for most people).

There's good news for those of us who still have big print collections (and you only have to have been shutterbugging a mere eight years ago to have a lot of pictures): You can now dump all your prints with someone else and let them digitize your collection for you. Like the CD-ripping services that will take care of your entire CD collection for a fee, photo scanning services help you get to the finish line on yet another weekend tech project that never happens. Now, I still have my print collection in boxes, but thanks to William Bulkeley's informative article on said sites in the Wall Street Journal ("A Lifetime of Photos on a Single Disc"), which explains the various offerings out there and offers a few specific addresses, I might just get around to it. Alas, you can't access the piece without a subscription, but you can just order a two-week trial subscription. Either way, here's the gist of the piece.

Like the CD-ripping services, many of these photo scanning sites—Britepix, DigMyPics, ScanCafe—just ask you to send your prints to them by mail, and they do the rest for you (using new machines that can scan 25 prints at a time). In fact, one such site, ScanMyPhotos, will scan as many photos (up to 2,000) as you can fit into a prepaid postage box that it sends to you. Some of these sites, such as Britepix and Digmypics, will also do your slides (which, if you're like I am, probably haven't seen the light of day since they were taken).

Also, if you or your parents have home movies of VHS, miniDV, or old reels of Super 8, you can try a service like iMemories, which will convert all those formats into digital movies on DVD.

The photo services are fine for snapshots, but the article suggests using a serious flat-bed scanner for higher-quality photos.

Apparently these rapid-scan machines are breathing new life into the beleaguered brick-and-mortar photo stores that have suffered from shutterbugs either printing pictures at home or not printing pictures at all. Kodak is even working on a kiosk-type machine that would let you do 25 or so photos at a time yourself, presumably sending at least some of the profits to these brick and mortar stores (or maybe not).

How about you? Do you have thousands of prints just lying around? Would you use these services or have you managed to get your scanning done with a printer? If so, any tips?