Our big renovation project is just getting started (Sherry’s been sharing quick peeks on Instagram), but I’ve already begun a separate project I’ve wanted to tackle for years: digitizing our old photos.
It may not be as dramatic as a renovation, but I’m genuinely excited to finally get our photo collection in order. Photo clutter is a common problem, so I’ll be documenting my approach for anyone who wants to digitize their own prints. I’ll test several methods and share practical tips and observations as I go.
Why Digitize Our Old Photos?
We have three main goals for this project:
1. Protect family memories
Our priority is to create secure digital backups of irreplaceable prints. Cloud storage (we’re leaning toward Google Photos) will provide an off-site copy in case of fire, flood, loss, or deterioration over time. Having multiple backups reduces the risk of losing important images.
2. Reclaim storage space
Our old, bulky albums take up a surprising amount of room—several times the thickness of the photobooks we now create. Converting the material into slimmer photobooks, or keeping some photos only in digital form, frees space for other keepsakes, games, and future photo projects.
3. Curate and declutter
Not every print deserves preservation. As we comb through albums, we’re finding many blurry, duplicate, or trivial shots—pages dedicated to my high school lava lamp or random neighborhood fireworks, for example. Those made us laugh and then get recycled. The digitization process is a great opportunity to cull and keep only the images that matter.
We’re approaching old albums the same way we might manage a phone camera roll: deleting the unnecessary, fixing the important, and organizing the rest for easy access.
How We Are Digitizing Our Photos
I’m experimenting with several methods based on suggestions from Instagram followers and other recommendations. I’ll compare image quality, speed, ease of use, and cost, and report back with pros and cons for each approach.
The methods I’m testing are:
- Using the iPhone camera to photograph prints
- Using an iPhone camera with a dedicated scanning app (some apps can automatically crop and correct photos)
- A popular dedicated photo scanner many people recommended
- The flatbed scanner on our home printer (this is the printer we already own; I linked to the current model since ours is older)
- A professional third-party digitization service
*Our printer is still going strong after seven years; the linked model is the current equivalent.
I’ll evaluate each option for factors like setup time, scanning speed, image quality, batch processing features, and overall convenience. While there may not be one clear winner for everyone, this comparison should help you choose the best approach for your needs and budget.
What We’ll Do With the Digitized Photos
Once the scans are complete, we plan to:
- Back up the files on an external hard drive (where we also keep recent family photos).
- Store copies in the cloud—likely Google Photos—so images are searchable and can be edited or re-dated in batches to preserve chronological order.
- Create photobooks to replace select physical albums. Some photos will be kept only digitally, while others will be curated into printed books that feel worth preserving.
I’ve started recreating a few albums as Blurb photobooks; that process is rewarding but time-consuming, so we’ll prioritize the albums that mean the most.
A Final Tip
This post outlines the plan since many of you asked for details. I’m actively working through the albums and taking notes to assemble a comprehensive follow-up covering workflow, costs, speed, and image quality for each method. If you can’t wait to get started, many readers highly recommended a professional photo organizer who shares free tips and paid courses on scanning and organizing photos—she has plenty of helpful resources and practical advice.
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