GON Reader Question
Hi Maria,
I read your daily email every day and have for years...10,
maybe? I have purchased multiple products from you over the years - all of them helpful!
I have a question and also a suggestion.
I need to digitize and organize 50 years of
photos. I have looked at photo scanners based on ease of operation and time considerations as well as categorizing photos when done.
I came across an app called Photomyne that claims you can photograph your paper pictures and then crop, edit, etc. with your phone or computer.
It seems much easier, as you wouldn't have to handle the actual picture individually.
My question is, are you familiar with this type of product and does it work as advertised?
My suggestion is you should do a column on this topic and help all of us with your suggestions. Or you could develop an app or product you could sell.
Thanks for any help on this topic.
-- Tom Treno
Response from Maria Gracia
Hi Tom,
Hearing that you've been reading my newsletter for 10+ years made my day.
Thank you for sticking around with me...it is truly my honor.
Digitizing and organizing fifty years of photos is definitely a challenging project, but it's a meaningful one. Doing so will not only preserve your memories, but will also allow you and future
generations to better enjoy them. Hopefully, as you embark on this project, you'll see it as an enjoyable journey.
To answer your question, I am familiar with Photomyne and have friends who use it and like it. Whether it's for you, or not, depends on what you're
hoping for.
Yes, you can take a photo of, let's say, four photos at a time with this app. That being said, you'll get much better quality of each photo if you take one photo at a time, versus four. So, while it saves time to take four at a time, it loses on
quality.
(That being said, this is only my opinion as a scrapbooker. I'm really particular about photo quality. My friends who use the app said they are willing to forego some of the photo quality in exchange for the time-saving aspect).
When using this app, or even when just taking shots of your photos with your phone's camera, you have to be very careful to not end up with glare showing up on the digital photo. To do this, you have to hold your phone directly over the photos...and be cognizant of any glare from
overhead lighting.
The Photomyne app will help you organize your photos and gives you online space to store and share your photos. Of course, there are other apps that allow you to do this as well.
I had to digitize many old photos awhile back and did the project using a photo scanner. That being said, as a scrapbooker, the scanner I have is expensive. A very reasonable photo scanner on the market these days is the:
Did my photo organizing project take time? Yes. A few months. But I kept at it each day (a little bit at a time) and finished the entire project of digitizing years and years of old photos.
To keep my photos organized
into digital albums and shareable, I use SmugMug. I've been using that service for years and have been
very happy with it.
I also use a second backup service for all my photos (Carbonite)...that's how important my photos are to me. This may be overkill for some people.
And I have retained the original old photos that are important to me in photo
boxes
If you are really strapped for time, companies like LegacyBox will scan your photos for you. This means, however, that you would have to send them your photos in the mail and they would digitize them for you...and send your photos
back.
Finally, thank you for your suggestion. I'll definitely take that into consideration. Maybe other GON Readers who are interested in this topic will reply to this issue and let me know if this is something that interests them as well.
Once you decide on the digitizing method, work on this project slow and steady. Even if you digitize just 5 to 10 photos a day, you'll get yourself off the starting line. In no time at all, you'll have ALL of those photos sorted, digitized, and organized to enjoy!
Good luck and keep me posted on your progress with this project!
