[chrisb]

I looked over some photos that a historical society has. I hoping that they would let me bring a scanner and laptop and scan 2 or 3 of them. Also I wanted to try enlarging some old small photos that I have.
I went to staples to see what they had for photo scanners. Any advice on a model or on specs to look for would be appreciated.

 

[Gary Armitstead]

Chris,

I bought this photo scanner from Amazon last year. $164. I did over 1000 old slides I took in Vietnam.
HP Scanjet G4050 Photo Scanner.
You can scan 16 slides at one time. It does negatives and positives in all sizes. Very easy to use. I highly recommend it. Check to see if Amazon still has it.

 

[Kovacjr]

I have a Canon LiDE 600F. 9600DPI works geat and fast, software very nice to use. Bought it from bhphoto.com

 

[GG]

Stick with HP scanners if you want hassle free software and reliability of use and integration with your existing computer.

Simple as that.

gg

 

[Paul Norton]

I have two HP scanners. One is a Laser Jet M1319f printer, copier, scanner and fax machine. It is quick, but big and you have to be able to feet the picture through the machine like a sheet of paper. If these are old and brittle pictures that may no be possible. This machine cost me $170. If I had known how fast it was, I would have got rid of my old $1200 HP Laser Jet IIIp printer years ago. I did give me over a decade of good service however.

My flat bed scanner is an old HP 2200c model. It has an 8 1/2 x 11 3/4 inch flat surface, and the cover lifts off so you can scan the pages/pictures/drawings from books. It is slow as each page has to be scanned individually, but it is small and portable. It cost about $110 many years ago, but still works today. I assume they are much cheaper and much faster now.

 

[Del Tapparo]

We needed a dedicated photo scanner to scan in old slides from the 50's. I bought one at Bed Bath and Beyond at Christmas for about $100. Sorry, can't remember the brand name (it was black and silver). It was junk. The images were just totally washed out like they were overexposed.

After much research, we purchased a PlusTek OpticFilm 7300. We have only scanned enough slides to determine we liked it enough to keep it, but it appears to be top notch. The old slides look like new. I think it was about $250.

 

[Pete Thornton]

I'm using my cheap HP Officejet for older photo prints.

Incidentally, I have an older Visioneer Paperport flatbed whose software is no longer supported under Windows, but Microsoft Office (2003+) has a neat little utility called "Microsoft Office Document Scanning" that supports most TWAIN devices. I found it works fine. It is hidden on the 'Office/Office Tools' sub-menu. The flatbed works for books and thick stuff.

Finally, I just photograph images in books (Potential Copyright Violation!)

 

[ohioriverrailway]

Thg best scanner I've ever had (and still use) is a UMAX S-6E. It's from the Win 98 era, and needs a SCSI card interface, but does it do a job. Actually found sofware so it runs on W2K or XP. We've got two other scanners here, including an HP all-in-one 6310 but neither match up to the quality of the UMAX scans.

 

[chrisb]

Thanks for all the feed back. I ended up getting an HP 4010G. Scanned an old 2 x 3 Rutland RR photo, with Photo Shop printed it at lettersize on photo paper. Came out good. Need to be careful as this could become another hobby.

 

[Dave F]

I've had great service from both HP and Epson products. I'm currently using a Epson RX580. It's a combo scanner/printer/copier. I've had it about two years now and it's been great.

 

[bob7094]

I had a perfectly good HP scanner, but when my old computer died, the new computer came with windoze vista. There are no drivers available for this scanner for vista.

 

[Pete Thornton]

There are no drivers available for this scanner for vista.


Bob,
See my comment about the Microsoft Office scanner support, above. It may work if you have Office.

 

[bob7094]

Posted By Pete Thornton on 03/09/2009 10:05 AM
There are no drivers available for this scanner for vista.


Bob,
See my comment about the Microsoft Office scanner support, above. It may work if you have Office.

Pete,

Thanks for the tip, but it's too late. I still have one working scanner, so the others (Two!) are gone to last year's county recycling day.