A few years back, at a time when I somehow managed to scrap multiple layouts a day, I realized that as much as I loved scrapping current photos, I sometimes got bored and wanted to scrap something different. I had a scanner but hated getting everything set up every time I wanted to scrap some older photos. Then I discovered the amazing SCAN MY PHOTOS. It is a service that will scan all of your photos for you and send them to you on DVD. How cool is that?
Here is how it works:
You order a prepaid box from them and they send it to you. You pack it full of photos (according to their instructions) and mail it back to them. They scan all of your photos (the say the box can hold approximately 2,000 — I think I got about 1800 in there) and send them to you as well as returning your original photos. They are shipped within 24 hours! Here is the description from the website:
We know the project of scanning photos can be daunting. Most people have 1,000′s of photos in their closet packed away in shoe boxes or photo albums. Now there is an alternative to scanning photos yourself. ScanMyPhotos.com is your cost-effective way to scan photos to digital files. Your pictures are professionally scanned at 300dpi JPEG files, put onto a DVD for viewing or editing on your home computer and returned to you with your photographs. All work is completed on-site so your photo memories never leave our sight during the process and are shipped out within 24 hours of when we receive your order. Choose from either of the options below, visit our frequently asked questions for more information or view a couple sample scans. International orders click here.
There are other ways to do it (including a $49.95 per 1000 photos option) and they also now allow international orders. You can also have negatives scanned (including APS which is good news for me since I cut all my photos of my first trip to India into cute dissgustingly ugly and weird shapes). Slide scanning and VHS to DVD are also options.
Just think…all those boxes of photos just sitting there when they could be scrapped! Here are some layouts I did using some of my scanned photos…
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A similar UK service is called Scanero.com. They’ve scanned 1000′s for our family and they’ve turned out great.
I looked into using Scan Cafe, but found out that they send all your photos off to India and it takes weeks to get them back. Much more chance of them getting lost.
I recently used Scan My Photos. I ordered the $350 premier service box. I was disappointed with the results:
1) About 20% of the photos have a light stripe, about an inch wide, running down the right side (or top, if the photo is vertical). I think this is a problem with the scanner, as there is not a stripe on the photos.
2) A number of the older photos turned out bright red – too bright to fix in photo shop.
3)Photos were skipped
4) A few of the photos had another image appearing in the scan
Has anyone tried Scan Cafe? This service is a little more, but they manually scan each photo.
Great to know about this. I’ve been scanning all of my mom’s family photos. I really wish I could send them all away and have someone else do it. But, I am too scared to put our precious family memories into a stranger’s hands.
Sound like a brilliant idea….I hate the job of scanning. However I just don’t think I could trust my photos in the mail….if the got lost during transit then what?
Now if they had an office close by, I would have not problem personally to the the drop off/pick up.
I have mixed feelings about ScanMyPhotos. The price was great, but the quality I got back was terrible. There is a red and green line across several dozen scanned photos.
I’ve never taken them out of the shipping box b/c I was so disappointed. Especially since I had to sort them by size, which means I have to resort 2K photos by date again, and can’t use the DVD I got back.
What a great idea. I scanned all my childhood photos as I re-scrapped them. I failed to back them up and my computer crashed… I have a huge box of my dad’s photos that I don’t really need, but don’t want to get rid of them. A great idea for those.
Lauren, you might consider a service like ScanCafe that hand-processes the scans. They are more expensive than ScanMyPhotos.com, but I prefer their standard scans. ScanCafe did an awesome job for me correcting color shifts and repairing scratches, and photos are scanned at 600 dpi (or greater if you pay more). You can also preview the scans and only pay for those you like (deleting up to 50% of order). Both scanning services are a blessing for those of us that have TONS of old photos, negatives, and slides.
Janet – Thanks so much for the mention and comprehensive review. Please let your readers know that they can reach us anytime on our free 24/7 live support help desk at ScanMyPhotos.com to learn about the 100s of photo imaging services to help simplify and preserve all those wonderful photo memories.
Best always,
Mitch Goldstone
President & CEO
ScanMyPhotos.com
What a great idea. Something I will have to do.
I used this service a year ago, and it was wonderful. We had boxes of photos of my husband’s parents, who have both died. We weren’t sure how to split them up among the 5 siblings, so I sent them off to be scanned. Now everyone has a CD of old family photos. We were happy with the quality.
i did this over a year ago – when the news of them just hit digi. the quality was awful. i had black holes for eyes – photos too dark, blurry…they tried to rescan them but it ended up the same way – because they batch process them – is what they say. i get a much better result just scanning them myself. pain? yes. but much better and not 100$!
the link gives us a msg that the link is broken but i found the site and want to say thank you… putting photos into a box i can do… we have discovered that taking photos of photos is faster than scanning but still there are soooooo many photos…thank you