I’m doing this right now, actually.
- Epson “Perfection V600 Photo” scanner - $300 from local BestBuy. Large enough to fit four 4x6, or three 5x7 prints at the same time.
- Epson Scan 2 software - https://epson.com/Support/Scanners/Perfection-Series/Epson-Perfection-V600-Photo/s/SPT_B11B198011 - can semi-accurately auto-split the scanned photos into separate images, if there’s enough gap between them on the flatbed.
- digiKam - https://digikam.org - FOSS for tagging metadata to the images, such as date/time stamps, etc.
Takes ~2 minutes for a single scan, depending on the quality settings. I usually scan in all the prints from the same session or date, then batch tag them with the date, organize them into albums, and finally upload to Google Photos and Moments (self-hosted on Synology DS409+).
I’m about halfway through my shelf of physical photo albums. I’ve been doing that on and off for about 6 months now, averaging maybe one album per week. I could go much faster, but it’s quite tedious, and I get bored quickly.
The easiest, quickest, and best way I found to scan thousands of photos was to purchase an Epson FastFoto scanner. You stick a whole stack of photos into it, it scans them one after the other amazingly quick, then you stick another stack in and keep going. I did this with boxes of old photos of every size, some of which I literally had to cut out of photo albums. There are options for scan quality and resolution. It helps tremendously to have your photos organized for how you’d like to store them, so for instance have your 1989 Grand Canyon photos together so that they can be named and numbered as they are scanned. It will even scan the back of the photos if you have writings or labels you want to preserve. This might not be the cheapest option, but its fits your other criteria perfectly.
Go to a library, some have scanners with feeders that will scan to a flash drive.
Cheap. Fast. Reliable. Pick two.
Check around your local walmart/target/walgreens etc, that have those photo labs/booths. Some have proper bulk photo scanners publicly available, and will (or you can) pass your photos through one and spit out a CD for fairly cheap (sub-$10 last I checked, but years ago).
