Do It Yourself?

If you're thinking of doing the scanning yourself...there are a few things to consider!

The research firm GfK North America, has determined that a typical American family has roughly 3,000 old analog images spread amongst its members.

Starting your own project to scan documents and photographs can hold a logical appeal. Maintaining hands-on control of your critical documents and irreplaceable heirlooms is an important consideration but before you take off, consider the following project components; expense, time and quality.

Expense - Unless you already have access to a production type scanner and your computer is robust enough to manage pdf, jpg, or tiff file formats, a financial investment to purchase the necessary tools can approach $2,500 or more. So, unless you plan to incorporate this project as part of a career-change initiative, that level of capital expense may prove to be unwarranted.
Time - depending on your selected dpi and degree of automated image correction, using a flatbed scanner can take an average of 4 ½ minutes per paper b/w document and 7 ½ minutes per color photograph. Loosely calculated 3,000 pages of documents and photographs would require approximately 22,500 minutes or roughly 375 hours. That's nearly 10 workweeks or 47 Saturdays at 8 hours a day.
Quality - your documents and photographs must be inspected for legibility and integrity and repaired if necessary to ensure the best output.

Remember, every day that passes with the task undone, allows unexpected calamities to leave valued documents and mementos permanently destroyed. Best intentions notwithstanding, we've all put a good book down fully expecting to return to it later.

Once you've determined this project is better off left to professionals, where should you begin?

Open our Vital Records Checklist

This reference tool will help you select the documents and photographs that will serve as a baseline the collection process.

Let Byte Recover Enterprises help you reach your goal of preserving and archiving invaluable family and business critical documents and records.