If you're talking about the copy stand, it's just too old to easily upgrade. The one I "inherited" from my Dad was originally made to use with a Polaroid camera and the lights on it are old fluorescents that new bulbs are not available for. Plus my digital cameras are not what is needed for using it - the lenses distort the images and the resolution is not as high as I want.

Here is my original thread about the copy stand - http://www.democraticunderground.com/103629879

Dad used it to make copies of old photos and documents so I had lots of ambition for it, but it is a whole new (old) technology for me to master. I know scanning - I've been doing it for many, many years - so I prefer putting the money into the larger format scanner than into the old tech copy stand.

If you're talking about the Epson photo scanner, the problem is the software. Although the back light area is plenty large for most of the negatives I am working with, their software will not let you select the full size - it is limited to their predetermined sizes. VueScan software by Hamrick gets around that - I can select as large an area as I want.

While I do have a few antique negatives that are larger than the area on the scanner, I am making two scans of those and hope to "stitch" them together in PhotoShop. I've done that with some of the glass negatives I have and was very successful.

Some of these negatives date back to the 1890s (the glass ones) though more are from 1910 to 1930. I'm trying to digitize everything. So many of these negatives have not been seen by anyone still living - they were either never printed, or the prints were lost long ago.

option for prints.

I have four options for 35mm slides and negatives - the Epson V500 Photo Scanner, an old Acer slide/negative scanner (but it only does up to 2400 dpi), a Plustek slide/negative scanner, and a Canon LIDE scasnner with an attachment for transparencies.

I got the Epson V500 for the medium format transparencies and software issues aside it does a brilliant job. When it comes time to replace it, though, I'm saving up my pennies for the Epson V700 that can do up 8" x 10" negatives. I don't have any of those but it sure would be nice to be able to scan the larger negatives I do have without stitching them together. Problem is, when they do have any the refurbished ones go for over $400.

there's been little need of a scanner or printer.

But I have my husband's great grandfather's, grandfather's and father's negatives and slides, some of my grandparent's and my father's negatives and slides, plus our negatives and slides from the decades before digital became affordable for us.

I'd been plugging away at our own, then my MIL unloaded the ones from my husband's family on me. Since my Dad died, Mom has loosened up on what she's letting me "borrow" to scan.

Then I've got the photos from both sides of the family that date back 150 years or so as well as some handmade portraits (silhouettes, and miniatures) that are older. Boxes and boxes, many albums, and envelopes of loose photos.

Neither family threw anything away even after no one alive knew who was in the pictures.

I figure at the rate I am going if I get no new sources of old film or pictures I might finish scanning by 2020-2025. And that does not include the time I need to sort, label and organize the digitized images!

And that is just the images - there are genealogical materials and stuff the family simply kept. A notebook in an old wallet had notes dates 1812 and receipts from 1834. My grandmother's college graduation program and her sister and brother's high school graduation programs. I'm digitizing everything and when I can, I'm finding appropriate museums to donate items to. Better they should have it to do proper conservation and I have the digitized images to share.

The nice thing about digitizing them is the ability to repair some images.

The other fun part is putting together picture groups that were separated decades ago. For instance, in the late 1930s my great aunt took my father, his brother and her parents on a trip to Yellowstone and across the Midwest. Apparently whoever took the pictures only had one of each negative printed and sent some to the aunt, some to my grandmother and some to my father, all of whom put the pictures in their albums.

Some of the family members labeled the pictures, some didn't. But when I scanned all the different albums, I realized they all went together - pictures of my Dad at different spots in the same clothes so it was pretty certain the same trip - and was able to date and place them because of the information in my grandmother's album.

It's all building to a more cohesive family history. While that may not be important in the larger scheme of things, I enjoy knowing more of my Dad's story when he was growing up.

through photos.

I probably got my photography from her.

I love following family history and am saddened when it's lost.

It would be wonderful for your mother's story in pictures to be seen.

If you scanned the ones you each have, you both could have copies and each have the entire story of your mother's life.

For me, the originals, while important, are not as important as the story behind them. Splitting up the pictures chops up that story.

Just my opinion, of course.

She is well versed in the visual arts and would be a good conservator.

She's artistic director for Horizons magazine. Really proud of her.

I hope you and your sister share as much of your mother's story as you can to augment the images.