Getting organized, part 2:
more hard stuff

At the end of my previous column, I intended to march onward toward dealing with digitizing and archiving your old home movies and videos, but a reader e-mail (by the way, props to Dan from Jerusalem for helping me to put off that difficult subject) convinced me that I hadn't completely addressed printed photos and other types of hard-copy originals you might want to archive digitally. So this week, I'll start there.

Specifically, how do you digitize hundreds or thousands of prints--or in Dan's case, love letters? The answer: very carefully.

Choose your hardware
The method you choose depends on the types of originals, the volume of items, and your patience threshold. The cheapest but most labor-intensive approach is simply to slap item after item onto a scanner. I don't know about you, but that thought gives me a headache. An extension of this method, which can work for smallish originals on a letter-size scanner or for larger originals on a tabloid-size unit, is to place multiple originals on the bed and use software that automatically straightens and separates each and saves them into individual files. Though not exactly a volume-production process, it has the advantage of being relatively gentle on your originals, and the ability to separate the scans is generally built into the driver for most midrange scanners.

An automatic feeder (ADF), which comes standard with some scanners and as an option with others, is a relatively low-cost option and can be an attractive alternative when you have scads of flat originals. But ADFs can be risky. For one, the D in ADF stands for document--they're designed to handle a stack of uniform, fairly hardy pages. Every time you put your photos in one, you run the risk of scratching them, not to mention having feeder jams that could conceivably turn them into origami accordions. Furthermore, old, fragile letters and photos have unusual, inconsistent sizes that don't appreciate being sucked around a U-shaped path and can choke your feeder. For these, I highly recommend getting a scanner with a large bed, such as the Epson Expression 10000XL. The downside: large-format flatbeds can be very expensive. But if you're a scrapbooker, one of those large, expensive babies is capable of scanning an entire 12-by-12-inch scrapbook page and could conceivably pay for itself if you start charging for archival scrapbook scanning. Just a thought.

Alternatively, you can roll your own solution with a good digital camera and a copy stand. This solution can be as cheap--or as expensive--as you make it. In general, copy stands can be quite pricey, but there is a variety available for less than $100 that should suffice. If even that stretches your budget too far, you can make your own. Once again, depending upon the size the originals, you should be able to fit two or more small items in a frame. Watch out for your focal length, though--too wide an angle of view will distort the straight lines of your originals.

Roll tape: from MiniDV to PC
Now that we've gotten all our static originals out of the way, it's time to move on to more movable feasts. And because I have to get this column in, I'll start with the easiest first: MiniDV.

I know what you're thinking: "MiniDV? I thought that was already digital!" It is, but if you want to use or catalog anything that's on tape, you have to copy it to your computer first. Although it's a fairly straightforward process, many people hit the wall when confronted with the confusion of cables that ship with the camcorder. Why? Because none of those included cables are the one that you need to connect your camcorder to your PC for downloading video. Furthermore, I've found that Windows detection of camcorders can be a little glitchy. So here's a step-by-step guide (which I wrote for an upcoming Weekend Project) to get you started.

So there you have it--no more excuses for letting those vacation videos collect dust in the closet.

There are also a ton of services that will transfer your tapes, both analog and digital, to DVD, but you have to be very careful to make sure you know what they're really offering. I'll address those issues in my next Pixel Perfect column.