Scanning in Family pictures

[taylo168]

I am about to undertake a HUGE project, one that i imagine could take me an insane amount of time. I'm going to start scanning in ALL of my family's pictures, some of them are very old and some of them are not so old. The overall plan is to scan them all, write them to a CD and them eventually have them printed. How do I insure that when the digital images are printed, they are the same, if not better quality, as the originial? Is there a quality of scanner that I should look into, or is it all in the settings, and if so what settings should I be using. Also for those of you with digital cameras, where do you print your photo's? Has anyone used any of the online services like Kodax or snapfish that print photo's for you then mail them back to you? I need all the help I can get. I want to do this right.

 

[voodoocat]

Are you talking about scanning prints or negatives?

If you scan a print, it's not going to magically make it better than the original print. You may have to do some touchup work in photoshop.

 

[taylo168]

I'm scanning in prints not negatives, All i ment when I said better was that some of the old photos are in really delicate condition. so maybe better is the right word exactly

 

[taylo168]

Oops i mean "better isn't the right word"

 

[voodoocat]

Ok that makes it easier to answer your questions...

First off, you wont need anything besides a simple flatbed scanner to scan your prints. The brand and model wont make that big of a difference. Since your print size already dictates how much detail will be scanned.

As far as printing goes, once you clean up the photos (you will have to clean dust and scratches) go to a place like adorama.com to get your prints. I recommend them because they use good thick paper to make their prints.

If you have a lot of prints to scan it will take you a lot of work. There is no way around that.

 

[taylo168]

Thanks for the info. You're right I can't imagine how long this will all take me. Years i'm figuring. I'll have to try adorama.com. So then I would just need to upload the picture to adorama's website. Do I need to worry about anything else that could affect picture quality?