Scanning family pictures

[Toocrazy!!]

In a thread a few weeks ago, this came up as a hobby. We have a TON of family pictures inherited from DH’s family that he would like to scan or somehow make available to his siblings and extended family. 
Has anyone found a good solution for this? Scanning seems like it would take a long time. And there are so many pictures, a service seems expensive. He also wants to tag them with names so family can search or sort for certain people. 
Any suggestions? 

[Katy]

No but I’d love to know this too.

[Junie]

I used a digital camera to take pictures of my grandma's old family photos.  This way we have at least a digital copy if something happens to hers.  Most of them turned out pretty well.

Edited July 8, 2021 by Junie

[*LC]

I recently read this article that talks about how to do this as a business; I would assume the basics are the same.

https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/make-money/side-gigs/photo-scanning-side-gig/?aff_id=86&aff_sub3=20210622&aff_unique2=ITR-1459dedf-394a-4656-8695-82d037a20233&utm_medium=email&utm_source=daily&utm_campaign=20210623&utm_content=make-money&sms=

I do think simply taking pictures of the pictures with a digital camera would be faster start, and it would at least allow you to decide which pictures you want to scan.

[73349]

I scanned some, named them, and put them in a folder on Google Drive and shared them. Unless it's thousands if photos, I think it's fairly doable in small chunks.

[fairfarmhand]

We just did this. In our case, the family paid my 19 yo who had no job to do it. $10 an hour. 

Making it easier...

If the photos are loose that makes it better. Many of my dd's project were in albums which was a pain.

Step 1. Sort through photos, setting aside any that do not have people in them or have nothing of interest. Granny's photos of her trip to Texas in 1968 are really of little interest to the family. Mostly, they want people and maybe a house if it;s important.

Step 2.  (We didn't do this, because people didn't like the idea of getting photos out of time order, but this would have made the project easier) Sort photos by family groups. This way you can scan the whole family group and tag things in bulk. For example, instead of tagging for John Smith, Patricia Smith, their three kids, Joe, Frank, and Sally, You can scan anyone who is in this family group as The John Smith Family. 

Step 3. Scan the photos while watching a movie. Many scanning apps allow you to scan multiples at once and then separate them into individual files. 

Step 4. Tag or file folder each family group. 

Step 5. Put the photos on a thumb drive or upload to a cloud service. Certain people worry about security so it was a thumb drive.

My dd did about 1200 photos and it took her over 30 hours to do this.

 

ETA; When you scan photos sorting them in family groups, remember that most  people will be in at least two family groups. Patricia Smith might also be in the James Adams family group, since that was her family of origin. 

Edited July 8, 2021 by fairfarmhand