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How To Scan Old Photo Albums

Having a photo album scanning done can be a great way to immortalise portraits, photos, documents, and albums in your collection tell the fabulous and unique story of your family. These are most likely some of the most treasured possessions. That’s why, here at Supaphoto, we take great pride in ensuring that we provide the best possible photo album scanning service and tailor it to your specific needs.

Unlike many of our competitors, when it comes to how to scan photo albums, we don’t use the one size fits all approach when it comes to scanning; we generally use the best equipment we can in order to get the highest quality product possible to ensure that you can enjoy your memories to the highest possible standard when we scan album pages.

So that these happy memories simply don’t fade away slowly from generation to generation, here are some of our top tips and recommendations when it comes to scanning photo album pages.

Scan Photo Albums to Digital
We have the capability to scan a wide range of photos, catering to every type imaginable. We also scan album covers. Whether you have fragile, ripped, or delicate photos requiring special care, or standard 4x5s, we are equipped to handle them all. Rest assured that your photos, regardless of their condition or size, can be successfully scanned by our expert team who are used to scanning old photo albums

one of the oldest photo albums we've scanned dating back to 1911

This is one of the oldest photo albums we’ve scanned dating back to 1911, we see some pictures of a family picnic and some vintage cars.

Photo Album Scanning Service

Scanning photos, photo albums and scrapbooks, which bundle of memories do you want to preserve first?

Everybody is so busy in life. People take photos constantly – at weddings at school events on holiday!  What we have seen over the years is that when all of these photos are added into, say, an album, people often like to have the images scanned together to maintain their original look and feel as well as the original layout. 

Photos from years passed are some of the most treasured and unique family items that exist; they come in all shapes and sizes and need to be treated with care. At Supaphoto, our aid is the gentle, hands-on approach of human touch from start to finish in order to create a digital version of the photo album or scrapbook that does justice to the original.

So, where do you start?

Choose a Photo Album Theme

scans we did for a customer showing a cadet cordial ship Chatham Docks during 2nd world war

Some scans we did for a customer showing a Cadet Cordial Ship, Chatham Docks, during the 2nd World War.

If you have a lot of memories waiting to be restored, you don’t want to just throw them all in! Even though you don’t want to set aside any loose photos, recipes, letters, etc – you can use them – it’s important to sort all these precious moments into categories. Look at sorting by events, people, time periods or locations. Choose a goal for the project and run with it.

For example…

  • A collection of war letters between a husband and wife overseas
  • Your child’s first birthday
  • A World War I scrapbook filled with documents and aerial photos
  • A collection of family recipes spanned across 80 years
  • A collection of photos from your first family home

How To Get Started

If you’re scanning at home, start by scanning your pages, either as full pages or as individual images. Keep in mind, depending on the size of your album, your scanning technique may be different. If the photo album or scrapbook is particularly large, you may need to scan each album or scrapbook page multiple times, each time a different sector of the page. Then, you’d need to digitally stitch together the pieces to re-create the page in the final archive.This gives you the freedom to either make a nearly exact replica of the original, or take it in a whole new direction.

However, if this is all a bit too complex for you, or you would trust a professional to do it instead, you can work with our talented team to create a unique, modern book to represent and preserve your family memories in a new way. Also, modern upgrades such as lay-flat binding and leather covers can add a whole new look to your old scrapbook so you can share these important family memories with the next generation with ease. This way, everyone can have a copy!

Tips on Scanning Oversized Photos

open photo album with white gloves next to it

How to scan photo album pages can be a tricky business. The most common photo sizes are typically smaller than 8.5-by-11 inches. Actually, that’s the largest size that most flatbed scanners can handle – in fact some items need more space to scan them.  We are happy to offer our advice and recommendations on scanning larger photos at Supaphoto!

Considerations

If you do send much larger photos and documents, well, it will be time to employ one of our larger dedicated scanners and operators. There are many types of images that are typically sent in including:

  • Slides (some people may find it interesting read a little on slides through the centuries)
  • Large family portraits with the extended family
  • Scrapbooks
  • Framed images
  • Newspapers
  • Drawings that your children have made
  • Travel tickets from holidays
  • Maps & guides
  • Brochures from maybe hotels you’ve stayed at
  • Certificates
  • Letters from loved ones
  • Documents
  • Posters
  • Postcards
  • Genealogy images

And if you’re still keen to maintain albums going forward – no problem. There are many interesting albums that you can purchase online – for example on etsy . By the way, a great site for personalising new ones by the way is hobbycraft.

So you see – there are so many candidates for large format scanning. Furthermore, many customers that look for photo album scanning near me simply don’t realise how many oversized items they have that could form part of their lovely story. Rest assured that we’re good at what we do – our team will guide you through the whole process. Taking care of your every need.

How to proceed – Just get all your treasured memories together for photo album scanning and give us a call! We can guide you through the options including how to create a photo book. Alternatively, take a trip to Supaphoto now.