Help....need recommendations

[lorin]

I have to put together a photo project for my fathers 80th birthday in November. I will have to scan very very old photos, some 100 years old. I cannot bend them. I need suggestions as to a printer/scanner/fax.

It needs to scan very high quality, I need to be able to enlarge the pics.
Mac compatible
flatbed scan
wireless

I know absolutely nothing about these machines. I have always used my office printer. I need somebody who knows this stuff to make a recommendation. I dont want to call Apple because I think they will only recommend stuff they are getting commissions on.

Please help!

[Savor Dam]

If this is solely for this one project, I would suggest not buying a scanner.

Perhaps someone in your circle of acquaintance has a scanner and the willingness to help you -- and they do not need to be Mac-based, as long as they will save the scanned image files in a format your Mac can work with.

If not, then you may well spend less going to somewhere like Kinkos that has the equipment available for use in-store for an hourly charge. Another plus is that they will have (somewhat) knowledgable staff on hand to help you, whereas if you buy a scanner online or even at the big-box retailer, you will get no help setting it up or using it. That might be frustrating. nu?

Good luck with the project, and keep us informed on how it goes.

[lorin]

I am guesstamating 100 - 150 pics. Do you think I could bring all the pics and have them put on a dvd? I am just afraid about the frailty of these pics and documents. Like immigration papers from Ellis Island from 1890.

[Savor Dam]

Absolutely. Whether you are using a friend's equipment or someplace like Kinkos, a camera shop, or even the photo department of a drugstore, they can scan your photos and documents on a flatbed and burn a DVD of the images.

At those quantities, you may spend as much as for the scanner, but the value of the help and no tsurris from trying to get technology to work is well worth it...or so I think.

[aliantha]

Costco's photo department will also do that for you. They also will copy old 16mm and 8mm (and other formats) film to DVD. We are thinking of getting them to copy all the footage my dad took of my brother and me when we were kids.