You have your entire family's LIFE in photos. SOMEWHERE.
Now let's get them all organized in just
One Place.
Join us, and I'll show you how to get all of your fading prints, slides, and negatives into your computer and then combine them with your newer digital camera photographs to make one perfect collection you'll be proud to hand down.
Scan Like a Pro
From Home
Our online video training course will teach even the most technologically-challenged person the basic steps for scanning their photos and documents. Gain the confidence to make all the right scanning choices.
Featured In
Topics Covered Here
Organizing Originals
Bringing all of your original photos together in one place. And if desired, creating a suitable order for them before being scanned.
Scanning Photos
Scanning your original prints, slides and film negatives with a photo scanner and scanning software suited to your own goals.
Storing Originals
Best methods how and where to store your original prints, slides, and film negatives, so they are archival safe.
Organizing Digitals
Learning how to label and organize your digital masters either manually in organized folders, or using the best photo managing software for your needs.
Restoring Digitals
Learning the easiest ways to bring your images back to life by correcting shifted and faded colors, scratches, and dust using your photo editing software of choice.
Backup Digitals
Learning how to have a backup process in place to ensure all of your scanned photos will live on forever.
Popular Posts
Latest Blog Posts
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Mylio Photos Review
If your photos are scattered across devices and cloud accounts, and you’re still dreaming of an easy way to gather all of them into one convenient place, Mylio Photos might be just what you’ve been waiting for. Mylio is primarily a photo-organizing app, but it goes beyond that by also helping you manage videos, documents,…
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The Importance of Descriptive Filenames for Scanned Photos
Discover why a simple filename can make all the difference in preserving your family’s photographs. In this article, we explore ten powerful reasons why descriptive filenames for your scanned photos are more important than ever. Learn how this small detail can keep your photo collection organized and meaningful for future generations.
We don't care how good you are with computers, just how much you care about your photo collection.
What People Are Saying About…
My story is that I'm 57 and most of my life is analog. It's time to save it all from fading away, else my kids will not know where they come from.
Having worked with computers and technology for over 30 years, I felt pretty confident when starting my scanning project. I quickly realized I needed help. Learning through the SYEL training course was the solution I needed.
Now I know what my options are, I scan with confidence, and my scans are literally 100% better. I would not have figured this out on my own. Creating high-quality professional-looking scans is easy … when you know what you're doing. Thank you, Curtis!
I've been trying to convince myself to scan my old negatives. I've read all sorts but this has been the best I've read.
As I have been watching your membership video lessons this week (which is a luxury and unintended consequence of having to stay home due to the Covid-19 pandemic), I am realizing I need all the help I can get! I appreciate so much how well you break down each lesson so that even I can understand. 🙂
Had I not discovered your lifeline, I would most likely have already abandoned the project out of frustration. Even though I read the scanner manual all the way through a couple of times, the information just wasn't clicking. Epson should be paying you for your thorough instructions!
Time to close and get to work! Thanks so much for being out there. I think I can do this!
AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME AND THANKS!!! I watch a TON of YouTube How To's and you are without a doubt one of the best teachers/facilitators of DIY videos I've seen here on YouTube! Much appreciated…
Thank you for a very informative detour while I was browsing for a solution to posting comments in Facebook.
Your URL name was interesting so I came by and your content was so nicely laid out I stayed for awhile. You made me think about our family photo collections and their preservation and gave such practical tips!
Thing is, I am wondering why you have not monetized your site more. I mean, it is refreshingly clear of ads and such. Perhaps the email subscription list provides the financial support or you are simply an altruistic expert? If so, thank you for that! But, if you should choose, I do think your stuff is great and you could do more to monetize (even asking for paypal donations) if/when you need to.
I really liked your content and style.
Thanks for making me think about the importance of doing this all. Who knows? Maybe I will even return some day to start a project. I have enjoyed sharing your passion for a bit and I definitely learned something about scanning and some apps!
“Curtis, I am so excited to have found your website at just the right time. I have been thinking about scanning my old family photos for years and every time I am about to begin I hit the naming problem and put it off. I have pursued my family history on Ancestry.com, and obtained many digital photos to add to my collection. Just reading the 3 steps of organizing has been of great value!
I also have intended to buy a new scanner for this purpose which is how I found your website. You helped guide me on that purchase and the other supplies that I needed for that. Thanks so much!! I look forward to more wonderful information as I go along.
The best thing about your website is how it is organized and communicated by answering the questions that a new scanner has and giving suggestions for those in different circumstances! Thanks again!!”
Dear Curtis, THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
I thought I had lost all my photos – but with your help, it was really simple to get them back into my iPhoto! Thanks again!
I was really busy the last days due to spending all of my free time reading ‘Scan Your Entire Life'. I really enjoy it.
It has been really good for me to learn from you how to systematize, to scan and organize my old photos and negatives. You really gave me the confidence and courage.
Curtis, THANK YOU!! You saved my photos!! So happy!!
Thank you so much for your series of articles. I've read them all. I started out knowing practically nothing about this. But now I'm ready to review the articles and get started scanning.
You have helped a LOT of folks. And with the baby boomers hitting 65 by the thousands each week the demand for your articles can only go way up.
Thank you again! You are so much more pleasant, good natured, and knowledgable than ANY tech support I've ever used! 🙂
AHHH! THANK YOU SO MUCH! I’ve been trying to recover my ‘lost' photos for almost a year now. I’ve read many ‘fix-it' strategies on other websites, but this is the first one that actually FOUND my photos!
Thank you so much for putting this membership course together! I am currently spending time with my parents and grandmother due to COVID. I have a rare opportunity to scan their photos – and then review the photos with them and capture the stories. But I found starting the project overwhelming – I couldn't even decide on a scanner.
I put it off for 4 months until I found your website. You gave me the map that made the project doable! I now have all the tools (including an Epson v600) and have started the journey!
In 6 days I've set up my scanner, watched the course videos, developed my workflow (though I am still making adjustments), and scanned 76 photos. (Well, I've made hundreds of scans – but I restarted the project after tweaking my approach.)
In fact, I so appreciated the Course and your above-and-beyond assistance in the forums, that I upgraded my membership to annual. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! I cannot thank you enough!
Your membership course is by far the best structured and organised online teaching resource (on any topic) that I have ever encountered. Across three decades I worked as a senior manager in large UK High Schools – so I'm qualified to discern and commend a well-developed and well-delivered teaching resource!
I followed every element of the course faithfully – every video lesson and every article. I scanned the Community forum dialogues and absorbed the shared information from several exchanges relevant to me.
Your exhaustive attention to detail can only be admired and the presentation quality of the graphics and videos is highly polished. Distinctively, a compelling spark of humour creeps in, as a throw-away aside in the video narration and in your answers to online questions. That personal dimension adds enormously, by making the lessons ENGAGING – a precious commodity lifting your course above the daunting jargon and intimidating numerical data.
Your course is an enormous help to me – firstly, by defining some anchor point settings to use and secondly, by widening the scope of the parameters I needed to first think through in approaching my own family heritage scanning project, beginning with 6000 slides (mounted transparencies).
Thank you.
Wow, all the questions and issues I've had regarding scanning and archiving my photo collection on one website! What a find!
I have been wanting to scan all the family photos for my kids but just didn’t have a system. I know I’ve got to categorize or have an archival system before doing the tedious work.
Thanks so much for your useful 3 part [file naming] series, really enjoyed it. Most helpful too!
Hello Curtis, I've been looking for you without knowing it!
Was thrilled to discover your website and recognize that there is a name for what I have been trying to do. Beyond that, you have seven distinct phases that I can access to name and tame my efforts. I have spent time in each of them without a cohesive plan so I recognize them all.
I've been working away hit and miss on my images since I retired in 2010. Luckily for me, my own photos and my inherited ones were never put into albums so scanning is an easier handling task. My first motivation was collection and back-up and then I became obsessed with tagging to create a searchable database, and then I tried consistent naming, and then, and then, and so on.
What's changed those efforts to compel me to push your I'm Serious button? I'm now a granny and have become motivated to tell the family story in a permanent way as a chronicler.
So I anticipate the next step in the journey with guidance from your experiences.
Kudos for a very well-done site and service.
Your website ROCKS!!!
Thanks for making my life better. I love you dearly.