Going digital
I can't throw stuff away, especially photos, slides and negatives that have accumulated since I got my first camera in high school.
Every now and then I may scan an old negative, like Dad when he was young or Sharon as a little girl. Mostly, though, boxes of prints sit on shelves and under cabinets, waiting.
The recent fund-raising drive for our PBS station gave me a chance to go digital with a batch of old photos. For a $150 contribution I got a scanning packing worth $149.99. Not a bad deal. Now I have to choose 600 prints, slides, and negatives to pack up and send off to ScanCafe.
Some time ago I looked into scanning services, and ScanCafe seems to be a good choice if you are not bothered by the fact that all their scanning is done in Bangalore, India. I found this out plus a lot more (mostly favorable) by reading this thorough review. Other questions about how the service operates are answered on their website.
Step one
600 sounds like a big number until you think about 45+ years of photos, totaling I'd guess 5000 or more. Where to begin? Here's a way I think we can make this work: this June is our 40th wedding anniversary. We'll pick 15 photos from each year to have digitized, then I'll make them into a video that we can show at the anniversary party. Simple. Now we just have to do it. Stay tuned for further reports.
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