[selowitch]

I don't currently own a scanner, and for the occasional business fax I simply use my digital camera and QipIt. However, I really want to digitize my collection of about 1,500 printed photos and wonder if I'm better off sending them off to ScanCafé @ about 27¢ a pop (guessing I'll eliminate 400 of those scans, it'll run about $297.00. But might I be better off investing in a scanner with a document/photo feeder? Is there one for less than $500.00 that performs well? I'd be especially interested in one that is super-easy to load lots of photos, perhaps in the manner of a sheet-fed scanner for paper documents.

[Captain Curt]

To my undiscerning eye, my Fujitsu ScanSnap S510M scanner is acceptable for scanning printed photos. It's under $400 at newegg. I've been very happy with my scansnap. It's alot faster than a traditional flatbed scanner.

[Captain Curt]

The scansnap will make short work of photos printed on normal 8 by 11 paper. Original photos of different sizes on different kinds of paper POSSIBLY may have to be put thru one at a time. My scansnap does not seem to feed thru irregular shape and size paper as well as others.

[selowitch]

Yeah, my originals are generally 4" x 6". I don't mind feeding them one at a time as long as I only need a second to drop the photo in place and the scanner does the rest (I need to be able to keep moving around, chasing after my 20-month-old daughter, not hovering over the scanner all day). Is that feasible?

[vmarks]

If they're all 4x6, you can do about 50 at a time.

[ph0ust]

another question you might have is how important quality is. i'm not commenting on the snapscan (never used one), but scan cafe uses pretty high quality hardware. if top quality is most important to you, it may affect your decision.

[Captain Curt]

Quality of the scanned photos is the real issue here. Acceptable for casual use isn't good enough for alot of people. If your archiving the photo collection, go with scancafe. This is a quality of photo scanned vs value/ bang for the buck trade off. It's nice to have a great document scanner left after you spend the money. The scansnap is a great document scanner but its not a photo scanner. If quality of the photos is a issue go for scancafe or buy a photo scanner.

[Captain Curt]

Scanning one photo at a time is feasible but it would include clicking a continue scanning button after each photo and waiting for each scan. Times 1500. Aghhh. Alcohol would have to be a part of the bargain. I think it is likely that you will be able to batch feed the photos with an occasional jam. Especially if you put in 10 photos at a time.

[turtle777]

I think, for your own sanity, you should go with ScanCafe.

Quality will be better, too.

SnapScan is a document scanner, it's optimized for fast scanning of mostly b/w items.

-t