Digitizing old slides...

I am the self-appointed family historian, not just for my immediate family but also for the family I grew up with. It's not a job most would care to have, but I actually quite enjoy it. I get great satisfaction from preserving history, memories, photos...you name it.

A couple years back I was visiting my aging grandma in Montana. I sat looking around her house and I knew if she died tomorrow the chances of me ever seeing most the things in that house again were slim to none. To be honest, I would be okay with that...except for the photos. Slides specifically. I hadn't seen any photos of my mom as a child and I wanted to get my hands on them before they disappeared. I asked my grandma if my mom and I could go through her old slides. My grandma willingly let me take the slides with the understanding I would have them digitized.



I had all intentions of getting them digitized right away. But I couldn't find anyone locally that would digitize this particular slide size. I researched a number of companies on-line that looked promising, but I had this fear of packaging these slides, shipping them off and having them somehow get lost as packages have been known to do. It was a paralyzing fear. I stuck the slides in the closet and didn't think about them again for a while.

Brainstorming ideas for mother's/birthday gifts for my mom, the idea of the slides resurfaced. It would be a treasured gift. I did more research and I pulled the trigger. I sent them off to ScanCafe. I learned many of these digitizing companies are having the slides scanned overseas. ScanCafe had an option to pay a little more and have them scanned in California. It made me feel a little bit better.

I sent a whole box to be scanned - after the scans were complete, I was able to look through them and reject up to 20% of the photos without paying for them. (This was also important because I had no clue looking at the tiny slide how good the photos were.)

While we were at our family reunion, we gave my mom the disc of all the photos and looked through them together.


I loved seeing all the photos.





I would say the pictures are priceless but there's obviously a price tag! :) But it's so worth it. Having these digital photos that can be referenced and enjoyed is infinitely better than slides sitting in a box that haven't been opened in ages.

So here's your public service announcement for the week: Get your slides scanned. You won't be disappointed and your family will treasure them.