Needing to scan ~1200 6x4" photos, AI upscale, reprint some to a larger size

[Deactivated] on 20/03/2023 - 15:16

My mum has a collection of photos that I want to digitise for her, approx 1200 6x4", mostly from 80s-90s. Intend to reprint 60% in 6x4" and 10% in larger size physically. Have a few questions if someone can clarify?

  • I will get a second hand photo scanner for this one time purpose only, how important is the specification of the scanner if it'll be AI enhanced/upscaled, and ran through a mass job of boosting contrast/clarity/etc in Lightroom?

  • Following up on the above, since it's quite a time tax, how important is scan quality for each photo, 3mins/photo vs 45sec/photo?

  • Tried a demo of Gigapixel AI by Topaz Labs and I'm pretty impressed, but the result seems "too good" for some examples, the time correct potato nostalgia is lost in translation. I obviously won't go through each photo one by one, is there an alternative that gives more granular control of how much "recovery" which to apply? (I ought to mention due to qty, it has to be offline software only)

Any other tips would be greatly appreciated for this big task. Thank you kindly!

Computing

Comments

  • AustriaBargain on 20/03/2023 - 15:24
    +3

    I'd see if a company has a machine that will scan them through a straight path automated document feeder. Scanning 1200 sheets on a flatbed scanner = yikes.

    No chance she kept the negatives?

    Also Photoshop has super resolution feature now which imo does a pretty good job.

    • [Deactivated] on 20/03/2023 - 15:37

      Huh, it never occured to be to outsource the scanning part, yeah I am dreading that part like the plague, there ain't a time limit or anything but I was debating whether to scan 1 or 2 at a time and then record a Photoshop action to crop each.

      No negatives.

      I've Lightroom Classic 2022 and a really old version of Photoshop, CS6 iirc, so don't have access to the latest and greatest. Never really thought about it until now, just thought one'd want crap to as best as possible, only when I did a few test runs by taking photo on my phone and passing through Gigapixel AI did I even consider what's lost through misrepresentation of nostalgia.

      • AustriaBargain on 20/03/2023 - 15:39

        However you scan then I'd do it non destructively; she'll probably wants those prints back. And probably in the same order they were in.

        • [Deactivated] on 20/03/2023 - 15:40

          They're in albums so I was going to take one out, scan, put one back. What do you mean by destructively, like simply exposing them to bright lights?

          • AustriaBargain on 20/03/2023 - 15:44

            @[Deactivated]: Some document feeders will bend the sheets around rollers, which shouldn't be destructive but you never know with old photos.

            • [Deactivated] on 20/03/2023 - 15:45

              @AustriaBargain: Ah I see, yes I did look at some fancies options with feeders thus why ended up settling with just a flatbed one at a time option.

          • Nugs on 20/03/2023 - 15:45

            @[Deactivated]: I started doing that once, that was 12 odd years ago and probably got thru two albums
            good luck
            .

            • [Deactivated] on 20/03/2023 - 15:50

              @Nugs: I've wanted to do this for mum a decade ago and never got to it, her mum passed a while ago and I thought it'd be a nice gesture, AI-ness wasn't really a thing back then and having tested a bunch of options I think it'd be a good way to go about it but now it's raising even more problems than before!

          • FoxJump on 20/03/2023 - 16:22
            +1

            @[Deactivated]: Ah albums
            You're potentially screwed.

            If it's the stick on the photo onto a page, and put a cover over it album ; you may not be able to remove the photo.
            If it's a sleeve, you might be okay

      • spackbace on 20/03/2023 - 15:49

        and then record a Photoshop action to crop each.

        You should be able to find some software feature, or even the scanner itself, to auto crop the image it's scanning

    • 87percent on 20/03/2023 - 16:00

      yeah do NOT use a flatbed scanner.. i did it for about 300 photos during covid lockdown, and it took AGES

  • godofpizza on 20/03/2023 - 15:41

    have you also consider arwork reproduction techniques?
    Which invovles photographing the photo with a digital camera. You would need to setup some light in a butterfly style to avoid refections. At least the photos will be in a much higher resolution.

    • [Deactivated] on 20/03/2023 - 15:44

      It has occured to me, I've some hobbyist equipment that I'm sure would be more than sufficient for the task, wanted to go down the scanner route purely for the quantity that I would need to do.

      My confusion rest a lot on the AI upscale part, I mean for the most part it'll be reprinted to 6x4, and the largest would be 8x6 in all realistic-ness, I don't understand what AI can act as a crutch vs how much effort I need to put into initially as the reprint is so small after all.

  • godofpizza on 20/03/2023 - 15:46

    how would you enlarge 6x4 to 8 x 6? it's a different ratio. maybe 8 x10/8x12?

    • [Deactivated] on 20/03/2023 - 15:52

      Some cropping into consideration, she didn't want them too big so the album bought accounts for max of 8x6 so I'll have to do those few individually.

  • Flying Ace on 20/03/2023 - 15:49

    Places like Kmart have feed scanners for photos, check somewhere like that.

  • freefall101 on 20/03/2023 - 15:49

    Assuming the originals were taken on film, AI upscaling shouldn't be necessary. Scan at the highest quality possible (i.e. highest resolution) and you shouldn't need to "upscale" at all.

    Any issues with the photos that appear when they're blown up to a bigger size won't be resolution related, they'll be issues with the original shot. Which means you just need to use photoshop tools to correct, not look at AI resizing tools.

    • [Deactivated] on 20/03/2023 - 15:53

      Unfortunately I only have the printed 6x4" to work with, no originals. I'm sure they were a thing at the time through my vague memories of childhood alas none of that was kept.

      • freefall101 on 20/03/2023 - 16:07

        By originals do you mean the negatives? I'm talking about the actual 6x4" photo that would have been made from those negatives as the original photo, it's at a high enough resolution already. Unless someone literally printed out 6x4" images, in which case, yoiks. That's a tough one.

        Anyway, I'd look at a service to do it. Something like this might cost you $300 but it'll save a lot of pain - https://www.photodigitalservices.com.au/shoebox-scanning.htm…

        • Dslrfirst on 21/03/2023 - 09:05
          +1

          That business is being sold or closed from 30 April - owners retiring.

  • holoz0r on 20/03/2023 - 15:51
    +1

    Dont use topaz ai for such a small enlargment. Dont use it for a big one, either. Theres many open source elements of stable diffusion that do a much better job than topaz ai can do.

    Sure it isnt click and forget, but the outcome is better and more tweakable.

    Photoshop alone will even do an excellent job with some of its neural filters.

    • [Deactivated] on 20/03/2023 - 16:01

      I've been thinking through this for a few weeks on and off and couldn't figure out the best way to tackle it, if it was like 100 I'd go with a different approach, not sure I could go through 1,200 examples one at a time and stay sane. Do you have a software of choice to throw my way to so I take a look at it?

      • holoz0r on 20/03/2023 - 16:32

        https://github.com/AUTOMATIC1111/stable-diffusion-webui - Requires a nvidia GPU; some downloads (to get the AI models) - then navigating to the extras tab.

        You can point it to a directory and use the extras tab to good effect:

        GFPGAN, neural network that fixes faces
        CodeFormer, face restoration tool as an alternative to GFPGAN
        RealESRGAN, neural network upscaler
        ESRGAN, neural network upscaler with a lot of third party models
        SwinIR and Swin2SR neural network upscalers
        LDSR, Latent diffusion super resolution upscaling

  • boomramada on 20/03/2023 - 16:04

    Or get this https://www.epson.com.au/products/scanner/perfectionv600phot… but process will take hours :)

  • FoxJump on 20/03/2023 - 16:15
    +8

    Hi.

    I like to believe i'm an expert.

    and also, i've done this before.
    I bought 3x Canon MX726

    I discovered that if they scanned into a computer, through USB, they would
    a) scan faster
    b) allow detection of more than one photo on the platter, in a single pass. It would produce an image file for each identified separate image

    whereas via wifi it would scan slower, and not be very good at identifying, and separating into multiple files.

    So, i had 3 computers, each with a printer connected to it, on a camping table.
    One computer, being where all the files were stored, (via a network share, into adjacent folders)
    said computer plugged into a 4K tv, running software I wrote to show me the photos as they got scanned.
    When scanned, it would watch the folder where the scanner put it, and move it into a folder that i had named
    And they got shown in 3 columns, each having showing the most recent 6 pictures. Each column corresponded to a scanner.
    When a pic got scanned in, it would appear with a green border that would fade after 1 minute.

    So the process was, open a new envelop with photos, name the folders for all 3 columns, open one scanner, place up to 4 - Go scan; next scanner, 4 more photos -Go scan, next scanner 4 more photos - Go scan; then go back to the start, watch the screen and confirm 4 green squares per column. If so, all good, collect all photos; repeat.

    I got about 2500 photos done in a week.

    If the photos were taken with a DSLR and carefully stored, then higher resolution would be good. Mines were 'point and shoot' photos so quality was not there always. so i think i just did 300dpi

    Note: the mx726 has a multi image scan mode that would identify upto 6 (but generally 4 was best) and straighten them up. Newer canon multifunctions may have similar features.
    If you're capable in programming with C# I can share the source code for my app, assuming i can find the code, and you can diy too.

    Note2: yep i still have the code. I havent tried to compile it. Maybe i should put it in a publicly usable repo. shrug. It's a windows UWP app for win10 (maybe 11 idk)

    • andresampras on 20/03/2023 - 16:34

      +1 for having the resolve to get through this.

      • FoxJump on 20/03/2023 - 16:36

        I also wanted to do UWP programming for resume building, so it was a win-win
        i'm trying to see if i can get the code compiling for the OP

    • FoxJump on 20/03/2023 - 17:08
      +1

      I was able to compile.
      the scaling is a bit weird, shows up as extra tiny text - dunno.
      and i havent actually tried running stuff through it. but the repo its in has that commit as "working" .. so i guess it was working 9 years ago.

      If you want to go down this road let me know and i'll try build a package that you can put into your windows machine, and if i recall, there's some powershell thing you need to run to bypass the actual signing process, which i never bothered to do as i'd just press Play on visual studio.

      or i can send the code, you can install a Visuals studio, maybe it works with the free one, and press play yourself.

    • kmwa on 21/03/2023 - 13:39

      I've used a Canon MP480 (that I got free) for scanning via USB, I confirm that the provided MP Navigator software allows three or four prints to be scanned on the platen and it separates and crops the prints automatically.
      It took one or two minutes when scanning in 600 dpi, so it's a bit slow. Resolution was excellent but honestly, 300 dpi would have been enough for a lot of the old blurry snapshots.
      I like FoxJump's workflow, it means you don't have any dead time waiting for scans to complete.

      • FoxJump on 21/03/2023 - 16:31

        each of my mx726 were $50.
        :)

        good old staff purchase.
        sigh, it will be missed.

        on the mx726 id press the button on the scanner, when it was plugged in via usb and magic happens. fun days.

        if i had my 3 printers still maybe I should have charged the op and done it for him. oh well

  • soan papdi on 20/03/2023 - 16:16
    +4

    Depends on how much time you're willing to spend but I've got good results from Google's PhotoScan. You'll basically have to tap 4-5 times per photo but it's free and you can break up your task into a say 100 a day.

    https://www.google.com/photos/scan/

    • Waltervp on 21/03/2023 - 09:11
      +1

      And may be able to leave photos in album as it takes care of reflections etc. I also think google photoscan is worthy of testing on a few, probably faster too as it diesnt require photo removal.

  • MS Paint on 20/03/2023 - 16:40

    Sounds like this would have been a good lockdown project.

    I would just wait until the next one before you commit.*

    *There probably won't be another lockdown.

    • sam-1966 on 20/03/2023 - 17:22

      Go outside, turn around three times and spit!

  • CurlCurl on 20/03/2023 - 16:44

    You can put as many 6X4s that will fit on a flat bed. You can then cut them individually. That's what we did when I worked in a mini lab.

    Enlarging 40 year old 6x4s to 10x8s depending on their condition could end up blurry and grainy.

    • Aureus on 20/03/2023 - 20:16

      This is the way. Best if you can get a second hand machine and sell it when done.

    • The Hawk on 21/03/2023 - 08:12
      +1

      Absolutely the best option. It’s impressively fast and easy to use, I did something like 3,000 photos in a day, just make sure you’re cleaning the path of dust every pass or two or you can get steaks on photos.

      They are silly expensive and don’t come up too often, but seem to sell very quickly when they do.

    • Gareth on 21/03/2023 - 10:12
      +2

      The Epson software for this scanner can save the original scan, a colour corrected scan and a scan of the back of the photo - all in one pass.

  • Sawtell on 20/03/2023 - 17:00
    +1

    To test take a stack of 100 or so to a library with reasonably new machines and put small batches through the document feeder. Wont take long and if they dont stick come back with the lot and do them all.

  • sam-1966 on 20/03/2023 - 17:24
    +2

    If you are thinking of outsourcing, check your local Endeavour Foundation or similar. They employ people with disabilities that can do tasks like this - one local to me has jobs ranging from making furniture to sorting plant tags. They always seem to be looking for jobs like this.

    Another near me used to print and fold brochures.

    Just a thought. I also think you'd get a great result!

  • fishing on 21/03/2023 - 08:12
    +1

    This is the software I used to convert all my kids photos to digital - photomyne

    https://photomyne.com/join?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&…

    Very effective.

  • PeterSnoot on 21/03/2023 - 12:51

    There are so many ways of digitising your prints, each with their pros and cons.

    I initially cringed at the thought of using a phone app to do this as it isn't as high quality as some other approaches. However, it is really quick and the quality is just fine for what some people want. There is also a learning curve for the different techniques and the phone app wins here again.

    Some things to consider:
    * Can you easily remove the photos from the albums without damaging them
    * Do you really need to digitise them all? These days it is easy to delete digital photos and there are many printed ones that deserve the same fate.
    * What quality do you need? You can spend a long time restoring a single photograph but you also need to decide if it is worth it. The same can be said for the quality of the final product (web image or print for example).

    Good luck!

  • rbrb on 21/03/2023 - 21:24

    I got a Doxie scanner to do this. You can scan straight to a memory card or USB drive. It also doesn’t need cropping as it only saves what it detects in the feeder. That way you can just sit and feed them through when you are watching TV, etc.

  • Gros21 on 29/03/2023 - 11:29
    +1

    I used a 3rd party mob to do this with all the family photos. They did an amazing job was buy the box. They even put all files in folder eg brown 85-91 albulm. They also scanned in other stuff that was present such as news paper cut outs.

    Was arround $500 but whats a decent printer and your time worth, if there all loose 6x4 photos i wonder if big w or office works does it you will want it hopper fead.

    I started to scan photos in manually but got 20 in and caculated my times worth more than this.

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