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How to Preserve Physical Photos

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79 points goodburb | 2 comments | 22 Jul 24 16:51 UTC | HN request time: 0.407s | source
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sxp ◴[27 Jul 24 04:45 UTC] No.41084509[source]▶
Related question: what's the best way to digitize a collection of physical photos for personal use?

I ran into this problem recently for a family reunion where we wanted a slideshow of photos that were decades old. The best solution was to manually scan them using Google Photoscan which involves taking a 5 pictures of each photo with a phone and letting the app remove reflection, perform skew correction, crop, etc. This resulted in better photos than just using the phone's default camera software, but it still took 10+ seconds for each photo.

Does anyone have an recommendation for at home photoscanners that would allow me to drop a stack of photos into it and have it automatically scan them? I found various devices on Amazon that target this use case but they all have drawbacks like low resolution or excessive manual work. Has anyone done this with their family's old photos?

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1. asciimov ◴[27 Jul 24 07:06 UTC] No.41084943[source]▶
If you have a lot to do, you're gonna want to spend some money on a good scanner, at least $400+.

I had the pleasure of using a Epson FastFoto FF-680W. I was very impressed with the color correction. It brought back some color prints from the mid-70s that I've never seen without their color fade.

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2. JKCalhoun ◴[27 Jul 24 12:32 UTC] No.41086165[source]▶
Yeah, I hear you on the color restoration. I just ran the scans through Apple's Photos app and was able to restore the photo colors to something very close to what they may have been originally.

If you are careful about using the retouch tool to remove scratches and dust (that may have been present the negatives even) and if you are careful with adjusting levels, I am pretty sure I can say I have created modern versions of the images that are even better than the originals were.

And BTW, if you want to really up your game on some of the better photos, have a 8 x 10 printed by a lab using aye-sub printer to print to metal (aluminum). Assuming you have a high quality image, you will be blown away at how much dynamic range you can get from a metal print. Stunning. (Shhh ... I'll be making Christmas gifts this year from some of the family heirloom images.)