Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Wal*Mart Wins: How I Scanned 119 Photos in 1 Hour for $2.99 (and saved hundreds of dollars)

I was on a mission: get 119 hardcopy photos scanned onto disc in two hours.

I needed to get the pictures (spanning the life of my nana) into a format that my family could review before passing the pictures on to the funeral home. I don't have a scanner, so I knew I'd have to pay for the service.

My first stop was Office Depot. They told me that it would cost an additional $2.99 for hand setting...each picture. They could group several photos on each page, but even if they put 4 images on a page, I would still have to pay more than $75 just for someone to put the photos on the scanner. I asked if they had any self-scanners. Nope. I left.

Next, I went to Ritz Camera. The cost there would be 19 cents per picture, but they wouldn't have them finished for another day.

I checked in at a local shipping and mailing store. When I saw the cost of $3 per scan, I walked out.

By this time, I was getting a bit antsy. I was eating into my time to actually get the photos scanned.

I decided to try one last place: Wal*Mart. The lady at the photo desk was quite helpful. She showed me how to use the scanning machine and I got to work. Fortunately, I could scan up to 5 pictures at a time and the machine would automatically split them into individual files. I figured I'd spend at least 19 cents per picture.

After about an hour of scanning the pictures, I was done. 5 minutes after I removed my last photo from the scanner, I had a disc in my hands. When I went to the register to pay, my total was: $2.99.

I did a happy dance and left. I got back home just in time to give the disc to my mom, who was on her way to check in with the rest of the family.

Thanks for saving the day Wal*Mart.

9 comments:

  1. Thank you for that great advise! I have to do a slideshow for my mother-in-law's funeral and you just saved the day!

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  2. Wow, this saves me a ton of money! Thanks.

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  3. Were you happy with the quality of the pictures Jenna?

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    1. Sarah: Yes. The digital versions worked perfectly for what I needed them for - emailing to the funeral home, for the slideshow and designing a memorial tract for my Nana. I didn't print any, and would probably prefer Costco (reasonable price, really good quality) or Mpix (a bit higher priced, great quality) for printing.

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  4. If you're REALLY cheap you can go to the library.

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  5. i really wish i had remembered this before i paid to have someone scan them at costco :/ total: $20 :(

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  6. Your tip saved me some cash! Thank you from 2017 for your posting, you rock!

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