When I hyper-focus on a project, I go all in. That’s exactly how I tackled digitizing our old photo albums. We crowdsourced recommendations, combed message boards, and researched extensively. From that research, I narrowed our options to five photo digitization methods and tested each for quality, cost, speed, and ease. One method emerged as the clear favorite for our needs, but there are several viable choices depending on what matters most to you. Below I explain what we tried, what worked best, and why.
As always, none of the products or services mentioned were sponsored. We purchased and tested everything ourselves and are sharing the results because they genuinely worked well for our project.
The Photo Digitization Methods We Tested
We selected a variety of techniques to cover the spectrum of price and convenience: some free, some more expensive; some fast, some slower. The five methods we tested were:
- Using my phone’s camera to photograph each print
- A bulk photo-scanning app for phone capture
- The flatbed scanner built into the printer we already own
- A dedicated photo scanner
- Mailing photos to a third-party digitizing service
*Our printer is a 2018 model that still works well; the link points to the closest current model.
I also recorded a short video demonstrating the bulk scanning app and the dedicated photo scanner, since those two felt like the most modern options we tried.
When evaluating each method we focused on:
- Cost
- Image quality
- Speed
- Ease of use
- Overall convenience
The last criterion was especially important because we had more than 1,500 photos to digitize. A method that feels tedious quickly drains motivation, so convenience ended up shaping the overall recommendation.
Our Test Photos
For a fair comparison, I used the same test images throughout—mostly photos of young John and teen Sherry. I picked a darker indoor shot of Sherry to see how each method handled low-light prints. Unless I note otherwise, the images shown are straight out of the camera or scanner with no edits, so you can see the raw results from each approach.
Best Price ($0): Your Phone’s Camera
Using your phone is the cheapest option since most people already own one. If cost is your priority, phone photography works well—I’m using a recent model with a high-resolution sensor. But it requires setup and patience to get the best results.
Tips for best results when photographing prints by phone:
- Set the camera to maximum resolution.
- Use a tripod and timer to reduce blur.
- Place photos on a white background for consistent color and contrast.
- Shoot in bright, indirect light to limit glare—an overcast porch or sunroom works well.
Photographing a group of prints at once can be efficient, but it reduces individual image quality. You’ll lose sharpness at the edges because the camera must be pulled back. Photograph prints one by one for the best clarity.
Time-wise this method was inefficient for large batches. Photographing 50 prints took four minutes, but cropping and saving each image as a separate file added a lot more time—nearly 30 minutes in my case. So phone capture is great for a small number of photos if you want to spend zero dollars; otherwise it’s not the best for bulk projects.
VERDICT: Best for digitizing a small number of photos without spending money. Not ideal for large archives.
Best Quality: Flatbed Scanner
If ultimate image quality and versatility are your priorities, a flatbed scanner produced the most vibrant, ready-to-use files with minimal editing. We used the flatbed in our existing all-in-one printer and were pleased with the clarity and color straight from the scanner.
Flatbeds excel at scanning non-standard items too, like greeting cards and letters. The trade-off is speed—arranging prints on the glass, scanning, and then cropping files individually makes this the slowest option we tested. I’d recommend a flatbed for careful, high-quality scans of a limited set of photos rather than an extensive archive.
VERDICT: Best for a small number of photos when quality and versatility matter more than speed.
Best For Speed: Plustek ePhoto Scanner
After receiving many recommendations, we tried the Plustek ePhoto Scanner and it lived up to the hype. It’s a dedicated photo feeder/scanner designed for prints: you place a photo face-down, it automatically feeds and scans, and the software returns an already-cropped file. It’s fast and consistent—50 photos scanned in under five minutes with minimal fuss.
This scanner balanced speed and image quality better than any other method we tried, making it ideal for large collections.
VERDICT: Best for fast, easy scanning of large batches without sacrificing good quality.
Getting The Best Quality Out of Plustek
Initially my Plustek scans looked dark, but tweaking the software settings fixed it. The key was enabling the ICC profile and selecting the appropriate photo-scanner profile. After those adjustments the scans were brighter and more accurate. The ePhoto software also includes color and exposure tools, though I generally needed only the basic profile adjustments.
Best For Speed (Runner Up): Photomyne App
If buying hardware isn’t an option, an app that enhances phone capture is a good alternative. The Photomyne app auto-crops and processes multiple photos in one shot, making it faster than shooting each print manually. It’s subscription-based, but offers a free trial to test the workflow.
Photomyne sped up capture and automated cropping, and it felt slightly faster than the Plustek for individual captures. However, arranging prints and photographing them is more error-prone than feeding them through a scanner, and the resulting files sometimes needed sharpening or color tweaks. Some built-in AI edits can produce odd artifacts, so use them with caution.
VERDICT: Second best for speed if you don’t want to buy a scanner.
An Alternate Photo Scanning App
PhotoScan by Google Photos is another free option. It scans one print at a time using several capture points to reduce glare and then stitches them together. The glare-reduction technique is clever, but taking multiple captures per scan can be tedious and results were mixed—some scans were blurry or retained glare. It’s free and integrates with Google Photos, so it’s worth trying for a few prints but not ideal for bulk projects.
Best For Ease: LegacyBox
LegacyBox and similar mail-in services offer a hands-off solution: they send a box, you fill it with prints and media, send it back, and they digitize and return the originals. I used a discount to digitize 50 photos; after fees and shipping the cost rose, and larger batches increase the price substantially. Processing took about four and a half weeks.
The convenience is unmatched, but the image quality was not as strong as our flatbed or Plustek scans: files came back darker and less vibrant, and some prints had unwanted borders. LegacyBox did scan both front and back of each print, which yielded additional files, though they returned the front and back as separate sets so matching them required extra work.
VERDICT: Best if you want a truly hands-off, outsourced solution and you have time and budget.
Our Final Verdict: The Best Photo Digitization Method
After testing and scanning hundreds of photos, the method we’ll continue using is the Plustek ePhoto Scanner. It provides a practical balance of speed, image quality, and ease—ideal for large photo collections. Setup is simple, the feed-and-scan workflow is quick, and the software produces usable files with minimal tweaking. For our thousands of prints, it was the only realistic option to maintain momentum and finish the job.
What’s Next For Our Digitization Project?
With a reliable scanning method in place, the next steps are backing up everything locally and in the cloud, and creating photobooks to replace bulky albums. Photobooks condense hundreds of images into thin, durable books that save a lot of space compared with the old puffy albums. We plan to organize, back up, and design several books so our photos are preserved and easier to enjoy.
We’re excited to reclaim storage space and feel more secure knowing treasured photos exist in multiple places. When the whole digitization project is complete I’ll share a final post with lessons learned, tips for organizing files, and what we decided to do with the original prints we’re keeping. Don’t worry—we won’t be tossing everything.
*This post contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.