Photo scanner? Or, how to make old photos digital

I've just opened up a SmugMug account (thanks to n2ou for introducing me to it!!) and I'm all excited to backup and organize all my photos and videos online. Unlimited storage is a glorious thing.

Now I want to scan in my "old" photos - for me that means everything from before 2004. I'm not sure if it's more effective to buy a scanner or send them out to have it done? I looked at the scanner at Amazon but I'm concerned that a cheap one (less than $200) will produce not-that-good reproductions.

What did you do? I'd love advice.

Do you have the negatives? We took a ton (300+) of negatives to Costco on Sunday for them to scan. My DH will also scan a bunch himself, whether it's the actual prints or the negatives.

Negatives to digital are 29¢ each in Costco, plus $2.99 for each CD that gets used.

I'd love to hear some advice too. I just recently started going through boxes and boxes of old pictures (damned Facebook) and went to find my old scanner that I don't think I've used in three years. The picture quality is horrible (I think the scanner is messed up), so it's either buy a new one or find another alternative. It will not be fun to scan the TONS of pictures I have.

We got an Epson Perfection V500 last year. I have a ton of photos, slides and negatives from when I was little, so we wanted to get a scanner that could do it all. I am pretty happy with the digital image quality (although I am no expert). Here is a sample...from 1976 or so...I'm dating myself:

Attachment 421

OT: Gotta love the little girl in the background giving me and my brother the stink-eye.

Back to the Epson Perfection V500, there is no feeder for photos, so those have to be done one by one. There is a holder for negatives and slides so you can do several at a time. I've only scanned a few images here and there and haven't really buckled down to do the whole inventory. HTH

That actually looks FABULOUS to my eye. 1976 was a long time ago (trust me, I'm right there with ya!!) and the quality looks great to me!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bigpassport

OT: Gotta love the little girl in the background giving me and my brother the stink-eye.

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That *is* priceless!! She must be jealous of your bikes!

I just bought an Epson V500 for $88 from newegg.com - I LOVE it. I'm doing a big scan project for my grandmother and it's been great. But I didn't know about the negative scanning from Costco - that could be very cost-effective for a lot of negs!

I scan a lot for work (documents). I have a bad relationship with scanner software. I've bought new scanners just to get better software!

I finally found VueScan by Hammrick. LOVE it. It powers most all scanners and makes bulk scanning a TON easier!

For the scanners themselves, I'm happy with Canon (mine doesn't require a power cord, which is awesome) and with Epson.