Photo Scanner Recommendations

Hi everyone! I am wanting to get a photo scanner to take better pictures of the postcards I send and receive. I was wondering if anyone has scanners that they really love and would be willing to recommend! Thank you!

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As the owner of a scanner which has been sitting in a corner somewhere gathering dust, I recommend you install an app instead of buying a scanner :slight_smile: Here’s a funny introduction to Google Photo Scan, the app I use most of the time:

It works for postcards, just as well as for photos.

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I really love the iphone scanner! If you have the “Notes” app, hold your finger on it like you are trying to delete the app. Options will pop up before the delete option for that app and one of them is “scan document”. I just scan the postcards there and screenshot them from my notes, crop them once the screenshot is in my photos and upload them to postcrossing from there! Sounds like a lot but really only takes me around a minute :slight_smile:

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As someone who doesn’t have internet on my phone & also my phone can’t talk to my computer (long story), I use a Epson Perfection V39 Flatbed Colour Photo scanner & it works for me.

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Are you talking about photo scanner apps or real physical photo scanners? I cannot help with apps (I’ve only ever used the Google Photos app already mentioned above, but for me it’s working way too slow). I have two photo scanners at home:

Plustek ePhoto Z300 - this is the one I use most of the time, each card needs to be inserted manually, but it’s very fast (I manage to scan 100 cards in 10 minutes without problems). I love this one for postcards, it only has one downside: it can’t handle (deep) black cards well - they’re often cropped in a wrong way. But black cards aren’t too common.

Fujitsu ScanSnap iX1600 - technically this is a document scanner, but it works well with postcards, too. It scans both sides of the card simultaneously. Multiple cards may be entered at once and will be scanned one after another. But it’s way too expensive if that’s the only reason you’re getting it imho. I mostly use this one for working purposes, as I really need to scan lots of documents.

Flatbed scanner drove me crazy after shopping tours :joy:

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I use the cheapest compatible flatbed scanner I could find. I do 90 % of my postcrossing in front of my computer, so a traditional scanner works beautifully. For the past 6 or 7 years I’ve used an Epson Perfection V39.

I have used Epson scanners for many years and have been very satisfied with the results. My current is model #V330 Photo Perfection.

Do you have an iPhone? I use the Notes app that came with the phone since it has a built in scan documents feature.

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I use the PhotoScan app on my iphone. It’s quick and easy to use.

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And here I am, having owned an iPhone for years, and only today learned about the document scanner in notes :open_mouth::joy:

I used to take pictures of the postcard with the camera on my iphone, only to edit them to adjust the colours, crop and adjust some more …. :persevere::rofl:

Thanks for this thread!

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I use an HP DeskJet 4155e printer/scanner. It costs about $100 and is easy to use.

Same.

Thank you @snailmailkait!

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I’ve tried the notes app scanning feature but when I send it to my computer, Postcrossing says the file is too larhe :thinking: :slightly_frowning_face:

I use the app Fotoscan for Android. Works very well for me.

For Android users, I highly recommend Microsoft Lens. I use it a lot during the pandemic to submit my homework because it does not have a watermark like CamScanner app. It’s free and time saving

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I personally just take pictures with my phone. It works well even if I sometimes have to take four or five pictures, and crop them. You can save some money just by using your phone in my opinion :smile:

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I use the app Google Foto Scan too. At the beginning I had some problems as for some postcards it couldn’t find the right corner to crop the picture, and so after the scan I just saw part of the picture. Then I learned there’s the possibility to easily adjust the corners manually and since then I have been using this app without problems, normally the app does it all alone, only for some postcards I need to intervene.

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Thank you! I tried it out for the cards I wrote an received today and it works like a dream! Much better than taking photos with my phone as I have done up till now :sweat_smile:

Interesting, have you tried screenshotting the scanned image and uploading it from your phone photos to postcrossing? That’s typically how I do it with no issues.

It’s because it makes it into a PDF. You need to put it into a PDF to PNG site or screenshot it

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