Scan prints, or re-process to CD?

[rspeaker]

I came across a ton of prints from high school, and want to get digital versions and throw away the prints. I'm considering scanning them, but it will take a long time to do that. Conversely, I had a photo CD made way back when, but the pictures are only ~1500x1000... They look good on the computer, I doubt I'll ever want to print them, but I don't want images that are lower resolution than my iPhone.

Convenience seems to favor CDs, cost and quality favor scanning. What should a fairly basic, non-professional user like myself do?

(Almost all the pictures were taken with Kodak Advantix film. I thought that would be the future of film/photography in 2002. Kind of funny how absolutely wrong I was.)

 

[emorydunn]

There is of course a third option: having them professionally scanned. I know there are several places online and probably a few places where you live that will give you the best of both worlds, for a price, though.

Now, what could also work is import the CD versions and keep the prints so down the road if you want to make new prints you can scan them in at high resolution.

 

[graphicsward]

do it yourself

I remember the good old days of advantix, I thought it was great too for casual shots. I'd take the time and pick only the good pics you want to save then just scan a couple everytime you sit at the computer. Thats what i did for all my old prints, it may take awhile but doesn't cost anything, and you control the results.

cheers



graphicsward.com

 

[rspeaker]

I remember the good old days of advantix, I thought it was great too for casual shots. I'd take the time and pick only the good pics you want to save then just scan a couple everytime you sit at the computer. Thats what i did for all my old prints, it may take awhile but doesn't cost anything, and you control the results.

cheers



graphicsward.com

That's what I decided to do. Pictures aren't super-great quality (I took terrible pictures in high school, it turns out,) so I doubt having them re-processed to a CD would make any difference. Scanning them in at 600dpi may be overkill, but there is a slight difference in quality I notice over 300dpi, and most images still end up being less than 2MB, about half the size of photos from my Canon PowerShot.

Thanks for the suggestions!