First, a reader’s scanner recommendation in response to yesterday’s post about my onging photo scanning project added some good detail. I’ll just quote this bit of it.

For 5+ years, I have used a Fujitsu Scansnap ix500 document scanner that comes with a mylar carrier sheet (you can buy additional ones at B & H, Amazon, etc). The carrier sheet lets you scan odd-shaped & fragile items more easily. There are more recent scanner models available but that ix500 is an absolute workhorse. I have scanned tens of thousands of documents with it. It does a decent job with photos though of course you?d want to use better equipment for quality results.

I used the same scanner for about a decade before it needed to be replaced. I used it as an opportunity to upgrade slightly to the ix1400, now sold as the Ricoh Scansnap ix1400.

I have found that the Vuescan software pairs easily with the Scansnap and most other scanners, after getting past a short learning curve. It makes a project like this much easier.

I’m sure readers would be interested in any other suggestions of scanners for a project like this, so please share.

My next issue was where to upload the photos. Amazon Photos competes in this space with Google Photos, both are reasonably good, but both have foibles and limitations, which I’ve been rediscovering with the first thousand scanned photos.

While I’m in the learning stage, I’m uploading to both systems, and making another copy saved on a suitably sized local drive.

Amazon is sometimes described as offering “free” photo storage. Well, not quite. Unlimited photo storage is free IF and only as long as you an Amazon Prime member, and are ok with the user interface used to organize and find photos once they’re successfully uploaded. A prime account currently costs $139 per year, but includes Prive Video and music streaming, as well as fast delivery and a few other benefits.

Google has a free plan that offers a total of 15 GB storage, but that’s not just photos. The total includes Gmail, attachents, and files on Google Drive. It’s free, but most users will quickly outgrow it. Meanwhile Google’s high level plans start at $199 per year (or $19.99 per month) for a total of 2 terabytes of storage, and go up from there. But these plans also include Google’s Gemini AI assistant, NotebookLM (which is based on Gemini), and other benefits. I have been making use of NotebookLM in reporting projects, so have moved up to the 2T plan.

One big difference is that Amazon Photos can be stored in full resolution, and overall storage is currently unlimited. With Google Photos, however, total storage is limited by your data plan. Lots of big photos, expect a bigger monthly bill. Users are given the choice of saving photos at their original resolution, which takes substantially more space, or saving in compressed format with some loss of quality (images are compressed to 16MP and videos to 1080p to save space).

Then there are the issues of organizing and accessing your photos once they are safely in either the Amazon or Google cloud. I’ll continue this tomorrow.

For the record, I scanned another album today, but I have to admit there were only 197 photos. I spent much more time trying to get a better understanding of the Amazon and Google systems than scanning and uploading! And today’s album was easier to get through because the plastic sleeves were in better shape and the photos were much easier to remove for scanning.