digitize my old photos

i got my first batch of photos back from scancafe, and am reasonably
happy with the results.

getting them done was more of a chore than i expected. scancafe lists
several levels of quality you can request for your scans, so i dutifully
sorted my prints into the many to receive their standard scanning and
the few to be given special treatment. i enclosed clear, detailed
instructions of what i wanted done, and was surprised to get an email
reply saying that all photos in one order could only be scanned one way.
there was even a suggestion that they ship the package back to me from
india (!) and that i divide it into three packages and send them back.

i asked that they please do what i requested as long as the photos were
already in another hemisphere. with enough complaining, my issue was
kicked up to a manager who still said they couldn’t possibly do it, then
did it anyway.

the scans look quite good on a computer screen. i chose a half dozen,
including representatives of all the scan qualities, and copied them to
my digital audio player. i took it to a drugstore, connected it to a
machine there, and had prints within a couple of minutes. (what a
world!)

this is the final test of my comfort level in keeping the digital copies
and throwing the original copies away—can i convert the digital media
back to physical media whenever i want?

the results were good, though not the miracle i’d secretly hoped to see.
when i brought the new prints home and compared them to their originals,
my first thought was that some of the new prints looked better, thanks
to color correction applied by scancafe. but it only takes a moment to
see that much of the fine detail is lost. the people close to the camera
are clear enough; those in the background are slightly blurred. branches
on trees, bricks on walls, tiles on roofs—all of these lose their
crispness and definition.

i would estimate the results as 88% of the originals, but note that for
95% of my photos, that’s all i’d want. when it comes to stacks of photos
i haul around from house to house and never see, i’ll happily take the
small decrease in quality in exchange for tossing the prints and having
fewer boxes the next time i move.

for the 5% i really care about, i think i’ll keep them awhile. there’s
always the nagging fear at the back of my mind that next year will
introduce an amazing new technology in optics, and i’ll wish i hadn’t
been so rash this year.

i thought all my photos were in one place. in the course of uncovering
boxes hidden behind other boxes in the basement, i found one full of
prints dating back as far as preschool. i’m a few months/years too late
for some of them; something (silverfish?) had a good meal on them, and
several are 1/3-2/3 eaten.

so i’m once again sitting in the middle of approx. seven oodles of
photos, about to sort and pick the ones to immortalize.

for safety’s sake, i made the best scans i could of the few most precious, irreplaceable photos, then shipped everything to scancafe. looking forward to seeing the results!

i just want to do two more things when i get the photos back in the mail:

1. check the backs of them for dates and comments, and make notes of them.
2. try printing one of the scans through an online service or a drug store, and compare the result to the original. if it’s reasonably good, i’ll be happy to throw 80% of my prints away!

i sat down with my collection of physical photos and tossed the 80% that i don’t want. now i need to pick a scanning service and ship the remainder to them for processing.

i’d like put my few photos of my first partner into good quality files while they’re still fresh. i regret that we were together before digital cameras and that i don’t have the negatives.

this is a good part of my more general goal to have less stuff. i’d much rather have easily-backed-up files that can be printed as needed than a stack of glossies.