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General => Technical Help => Topic started by: rosijayne on Thursday 09 October 25 13:35 BST (UK)
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Hi there
I would like to get a fairly decent scanner for scanning black and white and coloured photographs on to my laptop.
I would like one that scans front and back of photographs, due to some having writing on the back, and I would also like it to produce clear photos that can be shared with family.
I don't know if there are any that could "clean" up the photos a bit, as these are old, so that would be a bonus!
Many thanks in advance
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Although I worked in information technology, I'm not an expert on scanners, but I'm not aware of double-sided scanning, but one thing you should be aware of, is that it is probably rather risky to put treasured family documents through a machine that involves them going through many rollers. I would imagine double-sided scanning is possible, but do be aware. Another thing I would say is that the resolution even on low end mobile phones is an alternative that you should think about. I often photograph a document, and use an online optical character recognition scanning service to extract the text. I think you can even do it with Google images on a phone or tablet.
Zaph
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Hi there
I would like to get a fairly decent scanner for scanning black and white and coloured photographs on to my laptop.
I would like one that scans front and back of photographs, due to some having writing on the back, and I would also like it to produce clear photos that can be shared with family.
I don't know if there are any that could "clean" up the photos a bit, as these are old, so that would be a bonus!
Many thanks in advance
Double sided scanners are available but come with a hefty price increase as they are sold primarily as business quality machines. Two makes that spring to mind and that I have used are Brother and Canon although I'm sure the other manufacturers also have similar models.
Any decent scanner will copy photographs/books/letters etc although flatbed scanners (in my opinion) produce better results than hand held units. However if you want the scanner to produce a printed copy you will need an integrated printer and again many current models of will do this.
Cleaning up the photographs is primarily a software process and as far as know there are no current models that do this in unit - the normal process is to save the image to computer and then process the image in a secondary process using the proper software.
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Thank you, will have a think about all of that.
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You may have to also consider storage for your digitised photos/letters etc. Good quality scans can be quite large and overtime the storage requirements can overwhelm the inbuilt storage in many computers
Factors you may need to ponder over
Budget (affects every other choice)
What exactly do you want to get out of the process
Flat bed or mobile
Resolution: optical resolution and scanner resolution
see https://www.securescan.com/articles/document-scanning/resolution-matters-your-guide-to-scanning-resolution/
Stand alone Scanner or combined printer/scanner/copier
Software
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I have a flatbed scanner that does a great job. You would have to scan both sides separately. It is far superior to the three in one type copier, scanner, etc. It is the Epson perfection V 500. Mine is old, but there are newer models. I use it all the time for old photos and documents. It also scans negatives and slides with excellent results.
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Thank you Alison, I'll take a look at that one.
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The way I've done it for a long time using a standard camera or, my recently bought mobile phone, I finally cracked, is to place the camera or phone on the edge of the table so that the rear camera is just protruding beyond the edge of the table. Place a chair below that with your document on it, paying attention to any shadow either from electric or natural light. Carefully line it up either by moving the phone or the chair or both, and then take a photograph. You can make further very fine adjustments by putting one or more books under your subject, on top of the chair. That way you can line the camera up accurately on the document.
Zaph
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Thank you that's helpful
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The solution is straightforward.
Scan both sides separately, then correct each scan as necessary in a Photo Editing App, then using a Publishing App create a two page document of the two scans and export as a PDF.
Way, way cheaper than an expensive scanner or contracting it out to a specialist.
A reasonable scanner like a Canon is c£80, or c£150 for an All in One Printer with scanning features, or you can use Zaphods’ camera or mobile phone technique which is similar to what I do for taking images for my Wife to use in her educational presentations except I mount my camera on a Tripod.
Taking images using “The Zaphod Technique” and a mobile phone will allow editing of the image and correcting its orientation by using the Photo Apps on the device. BTW there are mobile phone tripod or steady cam brackets available for not a lot of cash.
What operating system are you using?
Some manufacturers specifically Epson only offer limited support and I had to scrap my old scanner as it would not work on Windows 11 and our old iMac could not be forced into seeing the scanner. Third party work around apps also would not work.
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Thanks, I'm using windows 11.
After reading everybody's comments, it's looking more likely that I'll just photograph them on my phone.
Is there a specific photo editing app that I should be using?
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I cannot help if you are using Android.
If you have an iPhone or iPad then the inbuilt Photos App will do all you will initially need.
An App like Photoshop Express can also be used to fine tune the image and to export it as a jpg file.
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Thank you, that's helpful
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have you tried a scanning app on your phone?
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I haven't, I hadn't thought of that to be honest.
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Take a look at the Epson FF-680W scanner.
It is designed specifically to take large volumes of amateur prints, scan both sides (if you want) and send the image to your PC. It does not print.
It might be too expensive new, but I purchased a used one, handled a large volume scanning job, and resold the scanner for the same price as I bought it for.
It is unique.
If you want occasional high quality scans then use a flat bed scanner.
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Thank you, I'll check that out.
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Hi,
I have found that the best thing for me for older photographs is a compact camera that supports remote shutter from a phone or similar.
You can mount this on a tripod for stability and have no risk of damaging the photographs, and it is much faster than scanning.
Personally I find using a phone is great for instant results, but if you want to get nice square in focus images, a tripod is essential.
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If you do use a mobile phone then if on a tripod or secured another way do use the Timer function for shutter release.
It will eliminate camera shake.
Timer function also is a work around on a digital camera if no remote app is available.
Our own Digital Cameras are a good few years old and we have a wired remote shutter release which is what I use for digitising images of large or bulky items that do not fit on a scanner.
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Thank you very much everyone, for all of your helpful replies.