Do you want to digitize photos? You can easily back up and preserve erstwhile photos by turning them into digital copies with many dissimilar methods.

What is the best way to digitize photos? Information technology depends on how many yous have, your budget, what you intend to do with the photos, and how much costless time you're willing to expend.

Why You Should Digitize Photos

Taking the time to plow your photos into digital copies isn't as easy as leaving them in a photo album or box. Even if you lot love to shoot with moving picture or agree physical memories in your hands, there are a number of reasons why y'all may want to consider converting old photos to digital copies.

  • It'southward like shooting fish in a barrel to damage concrete photos. H2o damage, discoloration, and accidental tears are all legitimate concerns that could ruin your collection of photos forever. Making digital copies allows you to make every bit many backups as needed. Now, you never have to worry about losing your unabridged family history in the event of a alluvion or fire.
  • Photo albums, frames, and storage boxes tin can have upward a lot of infinite in your dwelling house. On the other hand, you tin can store hundreds of thousands of digital copies on a single external difficult bulldoze the size of a deck of cards.
  • Family unit photos are meant for sharing. Digitizing photos ensures that no one in the family has to go without their favorite childhood memories. Every family fellow member tin can have admission to the entire photo collection.
  • Digital photos let you to correct blemishes, arrange white residuum or lighting, or crop out ex-boyfriends or girlfriends as needed. These adjustments simply can't be made to the same extent on physical photos. You want each shot to expect its best.

No affair what your circumstances are, everyone should consider scanning old photos. It may have some time or money, but the benefits of protecting old photos outweigh the cost.

If the investment has you thinking twice, you lot can always commencement small with your most treasured photos; y'all don't need to scan in your entire collection at once. Hither are three different options for how to digitize your photos.

1. Scanning Old Photos at Home

Financial Investment: Low-to-Moderate

Fourth dimension Investment: High

Taking the fourth dimension to convert onetime photos into digital copies is the perfect excuse to settle in for a couple of long afternoons. Scanning old photos at home on a scanner is time-consuming, just information technology gives y'all complete control over how your photos are organized, digitized, and stored. Plus, it'south a lot of fun to relive old memories.

The Best Picture Scanner to Digitize Photos

There are a lot of different brands of picture scanners out there, all of them offering a broad range of prices and features.

If you want to convert your photos to digital copies at dwelling, the best way to scan photos is by using a flatbed scanner. They are much less likely to impairment your photos. They're also compact and volition generally only require an ordinary laptop or computer to function.

A basic option like the Catechism CanoScan LiDE 300 is a neat style to browse photos up to 8x10 in size without breaking the bank.

If you've got negatives to deal with, you lot may be asking yourself: is it ameliorate to scan or photograph one-time photos?

Scanning negatives directly is, unquestionably, the way to go if you can afford it. The Epson Perfection V600 is the best scanner for old photos. It can digitize film negatives, as well equally your printed photos. The Kodak Scanza is a great portable option if you need a film scanner as well.

If you lot're willing to pay top dollar and are short on time to scan photos, some scanners are designed to scan stacks of 4x6 photos apace and at a very high quality.

The Epson FastFoto FF-680W claims to exist the fastest movie scanner on the block. Information technology scans batches of 36 prints at a rate of one per second. Information technology's wireless, too, then you lot can salvage directly to cloud services like Google Bulldoze and Dropbox.

Another user-friendly and affordable pick is the battery-powered Doxie Go SE. It scans your old photos to an SD card, and is the size of a rolled-up magazine.

Strategies for Scanning Photos to Your Computer

Learning how to digitize old photos is easy when y'all keep the post-obit principles in listen:

  • Be organized. Are yous going to scan photos chronologically? In lodge of importance? Should you salvage them to your computer or to your external hard drive? Consider coming upwards with a system for naming and sorting files so that it's easy to find the photos you lot are looking for. Yous may also want to consider strategies for keeping track of the subject in each shot.
  • Be selective. Think about how many photos you take on your phone that you delete immediately. Yous don't need to salvage all of your old photos (to do then would probably be a nightmare). Only scan the ones that are of import to yous.
  • Be meticulous. If you lot're going to become through the trouble of scanning photo prints, y'all may equally well get the task washed right. Wipe the dust off of your old photos and from your scanner using a not-abrasive material. This ensures that your picture is as clear as possible, without any annoying grit specks. If you're digitizing photos with a scanner that doesn't evidence y'all a preview, bank check in on your photo scans every hr or and then to ensure that they are scanning and saving properly.
  • Check your settings. All scans are not created equal. For scanning photos from prints, y'all'll want to employ a minimum quality setting of 300 dpi (but consider going as high equally 600 dpi if y'all're planning on enlarging whatever of your photos). Even if yous happen to be scanning black and white or sepia photos, choosing to browse in colour will give you some opportunity to brand edits and modifications to your digital photos.
  • Be prepared. You lot're likely going to spend more than a few hours with these photos. Information technology would be wise to put a TV bear witness on in the background, to listen to your favorite music on Spotify, or to environment yourself with friends and family for a photo-scanning party. Is in that location whatsoever better way to share memories as y'all dig through your treasure trove?

2. Using an App for Digitizing Photos

Financial Investment: Low

Fourth dimension Investment: Moderate

If you lot simply demand a mode to quickly scan old photos to digital, you lot may not want to invest in a picture scanner. Perhaps, alternatively, you're at a family member'due south home and only take access to your telephone.

Sure, y'all could e'er just take a photo using your phone's camera app. But and so y'all're at risk of creating shadows, baloney, and glare. These apps help to remove these features and guide y'all through the scanning process.

It's not surprising that one of the best ways to convert erstwhile photos to digital is Google's PhotoScan app.

The free app takes multiple photos of each print to amend quality, remove glare, and correct any distortion. Better however, the app can exist completely integrated with all the keen Google Photos tools that you already know and love.

Download: PhotoScan for iOS | Android (Gratis)

Not sure y'all desire to get with Google? Consider these alternatives:

Download: Photo Scanner Plus past Photomyne for iOS ($3.99)

Download: Photo Scan App past Photomyne for Android (Subscription required)

Download: Memories by IdeaSolutions for iOS (Gratuitous, in-app purchases available)

Download: Pic Scanner by AppInitio Ltd. for iOS ($iii.99)

3. Photo-Digitizing Services

Financial Investment: High

Time Investment: Depression

Of course, the easiest way to browse old photos is to simply turn to a photo-digitizing service. If yous don't want to put in the time that comes with scanning old photos, this might be the pick for you. There are a few downsides to digitizing old photos in this way, however.

One consideration is the security of the photos that you send away. You will accept to send away your family unit photos to a stranger, oft trusting the mail service arrangement with some of your most precious memories. This stranger will run across every photo that you lot send to them, so yous may want to choice and choose what you desire to browse.

If all of that is fine with you, this may be the best way to scan a lot of photos at once. Some companies that specialize in scanning photos include:

ane. ScanCafe

Cost per photo: 37 cents per photo scanned upwardly to 8x10 inches. Under its Value Kit deal, photo scanning costs 25 cents to 33 cents per image. Every photo is color corrected and edited past manus.

Formats Supported: Photos, negatives, slides, film/video.

Additional Services: Gives you the option to review your scans before purchasing, and offers expedited services. If you have a lot of photos to browse and don't mind waiting, the Value Kit pricing choice may be correct for yous

2. DigMyPics

Cost per photo: 39 cents per printed photo upwards to 8x10 inches plus shipping. Pricing for other formats may vary.

Formats Supported: Photos, slides, negatives, motion picture, videotape.

Additional Services: Color correction, dust removal, rush services, all at a premium.

3. Browse My Photos

Cost per photo: $40 flat fee, with a iv to 15 cent surcharge for each photo scan, depending on your choice in DPI resolution. It too charges an boosted fee for server infinite. Additional services (epitome rotation, color correction, and same-day scanning, amidst others) cost actress.

Formats Supported: Printed photos, pic, negatives.

Additional Services: Gives you the option to pay betwixt $145 and $299 (depending on resolution) for a prepaid photograph scanning box, international aircraft, and rush services.

4. Local Options

When choosing a service to scan your photos for you, don't forget about your local photography studio, or even your friendly neighborhood Walmart or Walgreens.

While not all locations will offering this service, this option may be more user-friendly and timely, if not a chip more expensive. This tin also be a better selection if y'all just want a few high-quality scans.

What to Practise After Your Photos Are Digitized

No matter how y'all choose to digitize photos, the upshot will inevitably exist more space in your home, memories that are rubber from impairment, and a sense of gratitude that merely a long trip down retentivity lane will afford you. Now that y'all've successfully converted all of your concrete photos to digital, your options moving forward are endless.

You can ship copies of your photos to family and friends, create a slideshow for your adjacent family result, or share any unforgettably awkward moments on social media for instant likes, comments, and gratification.

Nosotros hope yous like the items we recommend and discuss! MUO has affiliate and sponsored partnerships, and so we receive a share of the acquirement from some of your purchases. This won't affect the price you lot pay and helps us offer the best product recommendations.

How to Raise and Repair Onetime Photos With MyHeritage

If you desire to repair scratches in sometime pictures or bring them to life, MyHeritage has you lot covered. Here'southward what y'all can exercise.

Read Next

About The Writer

Andy Betts (217 Articles Published)

Andy is a freelance writer and junior editor for Android at MUO. He'south been writing about consumer tech since the early on 2000s for a wide range of publications, and has a passion for all things mobile.

More From Andy Betts