Frank Gossett Loc: Colleyville, TX

Several years ago I bought an Epson V600 for copying old photographs. It's slow!!
I watched a video, produced by B&H, with a photographer who has a setup using a camera stand, 22+ mp Camera, side lights, and Macro lens. its much faster, but the setup is pretty involved.
If you copy old photos, what is your most successful method?

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

What scan rate are you using to scan?
I use 300dpi and my Canon scanner is fairly quick. If I use 600dpi and/or enlarge, it takes longer.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Our retirement community bought a Epson FastFoto FF-680W Photo Scanner. It works well and fast in batches. It can make an original, an improved version and make an image of any writing on the back of old snapshots.

I wish it did slides!

MJPerini

The Epson has the advantage of pressing old photos dead flat, and automatic lighting.
If the aim is to be able to reproduce the photo at the same size, 600 dpi is probably fine and a good deal faster than a high resolution like 2400 dpi
Photographing old pictures works too, but you do need to pay attention to even lighting and making sure the camera is plane parallel to the Photo.
Old print photos are often not as sharp as we might like and any enlargement (no matter the resolution) will result in less sharpness.
Glossy prints work better than Matte and prints on textured paper (like silk finish) can be a real pain.
A lot depends on how many you need to reproduce.
You can still edit for contrast and color correction.

stan0301 Loc: Colorado

I certainly have scanners - but, much prefer using a camera with a macro lens

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

If you decide to use the camera method, Bill Burk (Burkphoto) has an 18 page ap note on the subject including lighting construction plans. Send him a PM if you can’t find it, and I’m sure he’ll be glad to share.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

18 pages

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

It’s very detailed including drawings/instructions for creating a light box for slides and lighting for prints, etc. Well worth the read if you’re planning on copying with a camera. Really nice of Bill to take the time to document the process he refined.

OldCADuser Loc: Irvine, CA

I have an Epson V550 Photo scanner and I generally scan photos at a minimum of 600dpi. For film/slides, I never go below 2400dpi. One advantage of using a flatbed scanner for photos is just that, it's 'flat'. Unless you're using some scheme to keep the photo flat when using a camera-based set-up, it's going to be noticeable. Using a scanner, that's never an issue.

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

SCANNER.

MCHUGH Loc: Jacksonville, Texas

I use a Epson scanner most of the time but if it is on textured paper I have better luck using my camera and lights on each side. I use the same method I used back at the time I was in business. The set up uses one light on each side of photo with polorizing filters on eachlight (be sure to orientate in the same direction) then using a polorizing filter on the camera you could turn the filter and see the textured surface disappear. Worked well on old silvered b&w photos. I had an old b&w enlarger that I converted into a stand to hold the camera.

Jimmy T Loc: Virginia

For This Test: Epson ET 4550 Printer Copy, Scan (flatbed ) set at 200, 300, 400 for X & Y resolution scans.
I scanned 3 1968 B&W curled-up 3-1/2 X 5 pics at one time.
Pics were scanned and then processed by Topaz Photo AI (Latest Rev) at default settings
Then I used PhotoScape X to crop the pics.
In my opinion:
Scanning at 200 X & Y the pic was close to the original but not quite as good, even when processed by Topaz Photo AI (Latest).
At 300 X & Y, The grouping resulted in equal to, or marginally better than the original pics after being run through Topaz Photo AI (Latest) at default settings that yielded a 2.2MB file for the three and a 589KB file per single pic.
At 400 X & Y, The grouping resulted in slightly better than the original pics after being run through Topaz Photo AI (Latest) at default settings which yielded a 4.4MB file for the three and a 1.1MB file per single pic.
Notes:
All scans for three pics were <1 minute long, so my future default setting will be 400 X & Y.
The long pole in the tent is the cropping of the three pics on one file.
All scans are automatically upsized by Topaz Photo AI after "facial recovery" and sharpening.
All comparisons were made side by side at 100%. Yes, this is pretty OCD.
No, I didn't try color, but I hope this helps.
Smile,
JimmyT Sends

StanMac Loc: Tennessee

In my experience, old digitized photos almost always need work to improve or correct exposure, color shifts, and may need some repairs of blemishes or damage. With that in mind, my approach has been to load up the scanner bed with as many photos that will fit and scan the batch into one file. Sure, scanning the whole bed will take a bit longer than one photo, but you save time by not having to remove and replace four or more photos one at a time and initiate each scan individually. I scan at 300 dpi. When I’m ready to post process, I open the batch file, crop to the image I’m going to work on, make the adjustments, if needed and save the file in its unique name.

You already have the scanner and there is no setup time needed to make it ready to use for scanning old photos. Unless you already have a copying stand with lights, easel, glass to flatten your photos, etc. etc. you would have to spend more time and money to copy your photos with your camera.

Stan

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

I scan at 600dpi. Don’t need any higher resolution. May go higher if I have one photo that could be a nice larger print. I don’t use it but I’ve read that VueScan is worth using for more options on the setup.

But then if you want fast scanning get a higher priced model.

one_eyed_pete Loc: Colonie NY

I recently finished a large project to make digital copies of my deceased mother-in-law's massive photo collection contained in two storage bins. The goal was to save the image files to stick drives to distribute to my wife's numerous siblings and their children. Some of the photos dated back to the early 40's (frilly edged B&Ws). Some were old 11x14 professional linen finished portraits (requiring multiple scans). Some photos were curled, torn, dog eared or creased. I'd used the camera on a copy stand with side lighting method before but I had challenges ajusting for varying print sizes and keeping prints perfectly flat and aligned (square). I found it easier to use a scanner so I used the scanner on my Epson ET-8550. It took me quite a while but I got excellent results. I only needed to edit a few prints (damaged originals) and stitch the multiple pass images. At the end I had about 1,300 images saved into logically labeled folders on 20 2GB memory sticks.