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Preserve Old Photos to Last Generations
Time is cruel to family photos and films. Convert decaying images to digital format to keep the memories alive.
December 2006
By Jeff Bertolucci
Holidays are a time devoted to family and remembrances of things past. When your relatives visit, you may pass around a crumbling photo album bulging with decades’ worth of cherished memories. But time is cruel to those fading sepia-toned photographs. And those canisters storing old films shot in 8- or 16-millimeter format? If you haven't tossed out the rusty movie projector by now, there's a good chance it doesn’t work anyway.
But you can preserve your family history by converting decaying images to digital format. Safely archived on DVDs or a computer's hard drive or both, your photos and films will never fade away, and they'll be easily transferable to newer digital technologies as they become available. You can also brighten, crop and correct blemishes of digital images using photo-editing software that typically comes preinstalled on home computers. Plus, you can play DVD-based slide shows on your TV.
You can spend $200 for a quality desktop scanner to handle a small project you can do yourself. For a bigger project, you can pay hundreds to thousands
of dollars for a professional scanning service.
Best Scanners to Buy
A flatbed scanner, which has a flat surface on which you lay documents, is the best bet if you plan to digitize an attic's worth of photos. A scanner is connected to your computer by a supplied USB cable. Just make sure it includes a transparency adapter for scanning slides and negatives. You can get decent scans from inexpensive, all-in-one flatbed models that combine a printer, scanner and fax machine into one desktop device. You'll want to avoid sheet-fed scanners, which are fine for faxes and documents but are rough on delicate prints that might tear or crumple in the process.
The Microtek ScanMaker i900 (www.microtekusa.com) is a top-notch flatbed for big jobs. Although it’s no bargain at $500 after rebate -- many capable scanners cost less than $200 -- the ScanMaker has some impressive attributes. Its large scanning bed accommodates legal-size, 8.5-by-14-inch photos and documents, a handy feature for digitizing large pictures of family reunions and graduations. (Bargain flatbeds often handle only letter-size, 8.5-by-11-inch photos.) The ScanMaker has two beds: one for photos and one for film negatives and slides. The film bed allows the ScanMaker to capture shades and shadows that less-sophisticated flatbed scanners typically miss.
The ScanMaker's 3200 dot-per-inch (dpi) resolution is very good, particularly if you want to enlarge the image without it appearing fuzzy. However, you can get good scans at 1200 dpi, too, and that optional setting will create smaller files that use less space.
If the ScanMaker is too rich for your tastes, we recommend the flatbed HP Scanjet 4850 ($150; www.shopping.hp.com). The Scanjet lacks a dedicated bed for slides, but it does include an adapter for scanning them. The maximum document size that it can scan is 8.5 by 12.3 inches.
Before scanning old prints, remove dust and lint with a dry, soft cloth or with a photo wipe sold at camera stores. Don't tape torn edges, and don't use cleaning solutions to remove smudges. A good scanner has software that corrects scratches. Wipe the glass with a household glass cleaner, but be sure to apply it to the cloth, not to the glass plate. If the fluid seeps inside, it could damage the electronics.
A flatbed scanner is as easy to use as a copy machine. Lift the scanner's lid and place a photo, image side down, on the glass plate. Markings will show you where to position the picture. Depending on the scanner, you then press a button on the scanner, or use software commands on your computer.
The inks used to create photos fade over time, so you'll get better reproductions if you scan slides and negatives instead of the photos. If you plan to scan only slides and negatives, use a dedicated film scanner such as the Nikon Coolscan V ED ($580; www.nikoncoolscan.com). It scans at very high resolutions to bring out the detail in tiny slides and negatives. Its software also brightens shadows, enhances colors and removes scratches.
For digitizing videos, try the Sony DVDirect ($180; www.sonyburners.com), a shoebox-sized DVD recorder that connects to your VCR or camcorder. The recorder burns your home movies directly onto DVDs, and it stores up to two hours of video on a single disc. The benefit is that you don't have to connect your video player to a computer, transfer the video and then burn the DVD -- often a tricky task. The drawback is that the DVDirect doesn't include tools for editing your video before you transfer it.
Going Professional
Even with the best equipment, digitizing photos and videos is a lot of work, especially if you're scanning hundreds of images. It may take several minutes to scan, examine and save each photo. With film, you'll need to scan each frame.
A smart, albeit pricier, alternative is to hire a professional service. Just ask Janice Hayes, 60, a retired judge in Sacramento, Cal. Hayes has hundreds of family photos, slides and films dating back to the 1920s. She first tried scanning the photos at home, but "each scan took several minutes," she says.
While researching professional scanning services on the Internet, Hayes discovered Digital Pickle, a San Francisco–based company that digitizes photos, films and videos (www.digitalpickle.com; 866-313-8386). Unsure whether to trust Digital Pickle with her family's photographical history, Hayes drove 90 miles to tour the company facility and was impressed. She dropped off her celluloid collection, and in a few days she received digitized copies stored on a 100-gigabyte hard drive and a stack of DVDs.
Although the service cost her "many thousands of dollars," Hayes is very pleased with the results. "We've always been a close family, and these were decades of cherished memories," she says.
To digitize home movies, use a professional service. There's a good chance you don't even remember what's on those old reels. In that case, Digital Pickle will digitize a small amount of film and e-mail it to a client. "They look at the beginning of the film to see what's on it," says Digital Pickle president Arik Paran. A 400-foot 8mm or 16mm reel costs as much as $180 to transfer, according to its Web site.
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