When we were children, photos existed in two formats: as prints and as slides.
The prints were stored in photo albums curated by my parents, and the slides were tucked away in their original little plastic boxes in a bookshelf. Our collective memories were safe.
Every so often we’d find ourselves gathered around the dining room table and Dad would pull out the slides, insert one into the slide viewer and pass it around while recalling an exciting anecdote or another one of his tall tales.
The slides had completely disappeared off my radar until early 2008 when my father brought them over — along with a slide scanner he couldn’t figure out how to operate.
Once we did, the results of those scans were rather scattershot.
We blamed it as much on the scanner as the quality of the slides (which had always been stored properly in a dark and dry place) and some of the original shots (blurry and/or poorly exposed). Nonetheless, we did manage to salvage a few good pictures. My father was generally satisfied with the results and left the scanner as well as the slides in my care because I knew that someday I would revisit them with my trusty old Epson Perfection 3490 Photo flatbed scanner.
That day arrived in early 2020. It was time to digitise all my photos.
By then, my own analogue photo collection consisted of a multitude of prints and Polaroids, the aforementioned 35mm slides as well as the original negatives from my own basic analogue cameras.
Before launching into the project, I made the mistake of looking for inspiration and workflow ideas because, well, it’s not like I’ve never scanned anything before, right?
Advice for the grossly incompetent exists in spades; what follows are my thoughts and experiences on the matter. Brace for impact!
