Photos are Not Documents, So there.

I got into photo scanning with 1Scan via a simple job for a longstanding client. It was a straightforward task of scanning what turned out to be nearly 100 photos. I did it all on an Epson flatbed scanner. Then we won a really big job, or so I thought, just over 800 images. Same approach, it took nearly two weeks of brain numbing activity.

I spent a couple of years torn between the massive market for bulk scanning and the time it takes to scan. So I sympathise with those who ask if there's a better way than a flatbed scanner. If you have more than a handful of snaps, regardless of how much time you have on your hands, scanning one by one will drive you out of your mind.

Like me, you'll hit upon document scanners. Maybe, you'll say to yourself, this is the answer to bulk photo scanning. Well it's not. Photos aren't documents, and I'll explain why. First, most text is produced on rather flimsy paper (compared to the light card photos are printed on). 80 gsm paper bends nicely so look closely at the paper path a document scanner imposes and check that those priceless family snaps will bend that way. Chances are they will not. That excludes several products from people such as Epson.

Second there's so much more data on a photo compared with a sheet of A4. Yes, I know these days people slip in charts and graphs in their documents but for most of the time the scanner only needs to deal accurately with black and white. By contrast an image spans millions of colours, if you don't get them accurately your scan is worthless. From personal experience I can tell you document scanners just can't capture large amounts of colour accurately.

Thirdly, text dots don't match photo dpi. Look at the spec of a scanner - if its pitched at text chances are it will do a respectable job at low resolution. OCR is that good. Same resolution on a photo is just a disaster. Even when you up the published resolution you'll find a document scanner rated at 300 dpi will not match a photo scanner at the same resolution.

When we set up our free photo scanningg service we needed to get speed along with quality. Save yourself the bother of checking, there's only one game in town and that's Kodak. A straight paper path, reliable feeder unit, high resolution, special software just for photo scanning, they have the range of products which will address the unique demands of batch photo scanning.