Photo Scanner - Scan those treasured family photographs

Converting your family photographs to digital images can be done at home with your computer an a relatively inexpensive scanner.

          Many people (including myself), have converted entirely to digital cameras. And even those who continue to use film, often have the developer deliver the photos in a digital format. Therefore, using these images in digital scrapbooking is pretty straight forward.
          But what about all of those family photos taken before the digital revolution? The answer of course, is scanning. And fortunately, scanners are relatively inexpensive these days. You can easily buy one for around $100.
          Some people opt to have their photos scanned professionally, yet from my perspective, that is both costly and inconvenient. And if you are savvy enough to use any scrapbook program, figuring out a scanner is not that big of a deal.
          About 17 years ago I started putting together a family tree album, which included photographs of our ancestors. At the time, I had to take photographs belonging to my mother to the camera store, and pay to have the photos reproduced. It was a very costly endeavor, and we did not have the luxury to reproduce all the photos. It was simply too expensive. We also had to decided, before having them reproduced, what size we wanted. We were getting back a finished print, not a digital file.
Old family photograph           Scanning allows us to share treasured heirloom photos with all of our family. And the great thing about having those old photos on digital format, we can use the same image a dozen different ways, and still retain a pristine original. Those images can be used in craft projects, framed in various sizes or placed into photo albums.
          When my father’s grandparents passed away, all of the family albums went to his cousin. It broke my heart not to have access to those photos. But recently, my father’s cousin sent me a disc, with all those old family photos in jpeg format! With scanning, we can share and liberally use the images of our ancestors. Family pictures need not be lost to certain branches of the family, who were not the lucky recipient of the family album.