Prepaid Scanning - Unlock the Family Photos Being Held Captive

When family photo collections are passed along, it is often the case that one family member, perhaps a sibling or cousin, ends up with the bulk of the collection that includes photos that are most important to individual members of the family.

Even with the best of intentions, the sibling or cousin may just not get around to sorting and/or scanning the images for distribution.

I was chatting with a friend over a barbecue grill last night and he mentioned that a cousin had several of his childhood photos held captive. He had previously offered to buy the cousin a scanner to get her started, but he was not taken up on the offer.

As an alternative, I suggested that he canvas other family members who may feel the same way and that he ask them to contribute to a bulk prepaid scanning plan at one of the major scanning services.

I suggested that for the price of a nice dinner, he and some other family members can get their hands on all of the photo images held captive by the good intentioned, but procrastinating cousin.

Both ScanDigital and ScanCafe have programs which allow someone to purchase prepaid scanning. The scanning services will then send a gift card or even a box to the cousin or sibling with instructions to simply fill it up and use the pre-printed mailing label.

What could be simpler for my friend? What could be easier for the cousin? What could be more important for you?

This pre-paid service as a gift for parents is also a great way to get the family photos preserved and shared before they wind up with a single sibling or cousin.

For additional thoughts on scanning images, and photo preservation and sharing, visit LocalArchiver.com.