Where are you located?

I did several thousand old and family photos about five years ago. I used our cheap HP Envy 4500 printer/scanner and scanned wirelessly to my MBP.

I used the built-in software on both devices (i.e. no third-party stuff). This included the ability to detect the edges of photos so that, depending on the size of the photos, I could put several down on the glass at once and create separate scans in one pass.

It was a bit slow and tedious at first but was a labour of love - once I got into the swing of it, I developed a rhythm and chewed through them much more quickly. Was really pleased with the results. 

surfisup1000:

Where are you located?

 

eracode:

I did several thousand old and family photos about five years ago. I used our cheap HP Envy 4500 printer/scanner and scanned wirelessly to my MBP.

I used the built-in software on both devices (i.e. no third-party stuff). This included the ability to detect the edges of photos so that, depending on the size of the photos, I could put several down on the glass at once and create separate scans in one pass.

It was a bit slow and tedious at first but was a labour of love - once I got into the swing of it, I developed a rhythm and chewed through them much more quickly. Was really pleased with the results. 

EviLClouD:

This sounds ideal! Does anyone know if HP software still does this or any other alternative printer brands or programs to achieve something similar?

I have a Brother MFC-J491DW that is a few years old, but I imagine the current Brother equivalent would do the same. Just had to install the full Brother Utilities package to get the driver that allows for laying out multiple photos and having them recognised as individual scanned images. The default Brother iPrint&Scan application is fine for full page A4 scanning, but won't do the individual image thing.

EviLClouD: 

 

This sounds ideal! Does anyone know if HP software still does this or any other alternative printer brands or programs to achieve something similar?

 

HP software, in combo with my MBP, does still do this - I still scan all sorts of stuff frequently.

nitro:

 

gzt: I had excellent results with a flatbed scanner bringing out detail not seen in the original. It is time consuming. Is there a service that does this at high quality?

 

strictly speaking this doesn't really happen, i.e. you cannot get more detail than the source material. however, flatbed scanners that support Digital ICE gives such a remarkable improvement that the naked eye sees it as increased detail. in reality, it is mostly due to the corrections applied to prints that have already faded and/or has scratches. digital ICE working on such material is a thing of magic.

 

Crucial part here being the source material.

Lapenguina paid for Wellington Photographic Supplies to scan some family prints but if you compare their output to that captured at home on the Brother MFC, there's no difference, apart from the home scans don't cost $x each and I don't have to wait a week.

They were photographed in poor light by beginner photographers with poor cameras using crappy film stock and they've been exposed to daylight for 40 years so , no , they're not even approaching high resolution.