Scanning Old Photos options etc

[freezephotos]

I am sorry but didn't know where to post this but my question is:

What are the options to convert old photos to digital storage?

Scan options?
Take Digital Pic?
Or?

In the past I would scan then but it's a massive time consuming and boring precedure considering I have thousands of prints gathered through the years of Film:

 

[StephenM]

It depends.

If you want the very best possible quality, then start with the negatives and scan those.

The next best option would be to scan the photos. I say this because there should be no problem about evenness of lighting and having the camera and print parallel.

Third choice for me would be photographing the prints.

It is possible to photograph negatives/slides to digitise them, and I have done so. From my point of view, it's quicker (a fraction of a second) to convert one negative to digital than using a scanner, but with the equipment I have it's actually more labour intensive to keep swapping slides individually rather than loading up a dozen and letting the scanner loose on them.

 

[freezephotos]

Third choice for me would be photographing the prints.

For me because of lack of negatives ( I have some) and also time issues scanning lots of images the photo option sounds attractive, which creats a new question:

Best way to photograph prints for optimum quality?

 

[StephenM]

Best way to photograph prints for optimum quality?

Even lighting (probably easiest to achieve from north facing window light); avoid reflection from glossy photos; make sure that camera and photo are in the same plane (to avoid keystoning - realistically requires a tripod). If set up carefully once, this avoids having to individually adjust perspective in Photoshop for each photo.

Or, as a council of prefection: copy stand with two lights carefully balanced.

Or look at this book.