How to Scan Your Old Photos

 Shoeboxes of old photos may hold your family's history and memories, but they're difficult to preserve, share, organize, and back up. The best way to solve this problem is to digitize your old photos. It's easy to do at home using a really good scanner, which can cost as little as about $65, or the scanner bed on 

 

an all-in-one printer, if you already have one. You can also mail your photos to a company that digitizes them for you and then sends them back when they're done.

When you turn print photos into digital files, you have them right at hand when you need them. That way, you'll be able to find, share, and print any picture in minutes.

Let's look at these two options: hiring a company to digitize your photos and doing it at home. Both options have pros and cons. If you decide to do it yourself, keep reading for a few tips from pros on how to get the best results.

Keep in mind that you can use both options in tandem. For example, if you have some photos that you want scanned right away, you can do it at home while sending the rest of your collection out to a professional scanning service.

Plenty of companies can scan your photos for you. Usually, it works like this: You mail your images to the company, and they take some time to scan them. Once your images have been digitized, the company sends you a link or a login to an account where you find all the digital copies of your pictures. Sometimes you have an option to purchase a DVD or USB drive with your images on them, too. At the end of the process, the company mails the original photos back to you.

Some benefits of using a photo scanning service are:

• Professional results

• Convenience, sometimes with the companies even supplying the shipping materials

• Someone else does the tedious work of scanning each image

Some cons of using a photo scanning service are:

• Risk of damage or loss when sending original photos through the mail