this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2026
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[–] limelight79@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I have an Epson scanner, though I'd have to check the exact model. The one I have has the light so I can scan negatives or prints, but if you're only doing prints you wouldn't need that feature.

I used Vuescan to do it. Paid software, but none of the open source options were as smooth for high volume scanning (this was some years ago, so that might have changed). Vuescan did a pretty good job of adjusting colors and all automatically after the scan. It was worth the money for the time savings alone.

Basically just sit there, load the print, hit scan, wait, remove the print, repeat. You'll learn the sound of the scanner when it's returning to the top of the glass, at which point the print is safe to remove even if the software is still processing. That saves a little time.

It's tedious, no question. Scanning negatives is better because you can get up to six in one shot. Get a second negative holder and you can have one scanning while you're setting up the other one. It took me months and months.

Also consider culling the pictures you scan. Did I need to scan all of those rolls of the bridge construction? Nah.

Edit - your comment has me thinking, I need work in winter time. Maybe this could be a side job...

[–] tomiant@piefed.social 1 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Holy shit. You crazy motherfucker. You actually put the photos on the frame one by one? And scanned them one by one?

I gotta say...

You may be insane, but you get the job done, as opposed to me, who am still trying to figure out the best way to do it.

That's why we are still trying to understand how they built the pyramids, while the pyramid builders simply did it.

[–] limelight79@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

Yeah. I don't remember how many of the pictures I scanned were prints, but it was quite a few, maybe close to 1,000. As I said, just watched TV and did it. It's pretty mindless once you get into the groove doing it.

Like I said before, I did try to find the negatives and scan those instead when possible. Better quality and more efficient. But for quite a few, no negatives. I also had to take pictures out of frames and stuff like that. My parents wedding picture was in a cardboard frame I had to disassemble carefully...