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What is the cheapest/easiest/quickest/best way to digitize thousands of paper photos? I realize these four parameters may be mutually exclusive. (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm doing this right now, actually.

Epson "Perfection V600 Photo" scanner - $300 from local BestBuy. Large enough to fit four 4x6, or three 5x7 prints at the same time.
Epson Scan 2 software - https://epson.com/Support/Scanners/Perfection-Series/Epson-Perfection-V600-Photo/s/SPT_B11B198011 - can semi-accurately auto-split the scanned photos into separate images, if there's enough gap between them on the flatbed.
digiKam - https://digikam.org - FOSS for tagging metadata to the images, such as date/time stamps, etc.

Takes ~2 minutes for a single scan, depending on the quality settings. I usually scan in all the prints from the same session or date, then batch tag them with the date, organize them into albums, and finally upload to Google Photos and Moments (self-hosted on Synology DS409+).

I'm about halfway through my shelf of physical photo albums. I've been doing that on and off for about 6 months now, averaging maybe one album per week. I could go much faster, but it's quite tedious, and I get bored quickly.