The best way to digitize printed photos, text documents, and other printed media is to use a scanner to scan them yourself. In recent years, the quality and affordability of consumer scanners have improved, making the devices well suited for this type of project.

By performing your own scans, you'll have maximum control over the handling of your media (sometimes the media you need to scan is fragile) and over the quality of your scans. But you need to pick the right scanner to meet your needs. For this review, we looked at three flatbed scanners and four sheetfed scanners and tested each one for speed, image quality, and ease of use. What we found is that while many scanners are fast performers and are capable of producing good image quality, they also present some usability issues that you'll have to tackle.

Before purchasing a scanner, take stock of the types of media you need to digitize. Do you primarily have photo negatives or prints? Do you have piles and piles of legal documents you'd like to have in digital form? Do you want digital images with better image quality, or digital documents with accurate text?

These factors will have an impact on the type of scanner you choose. For these types of projects, there are two main categories of scanners: flatbed and sheetfed scanners.

Flatbed Scanners: An Overview

If you'll be scanning a variety of media (multiple print sizes, negatives, or photo albums, for example) your best choice is a flatbed scanner. With a flatbed model, you place your media flat on a glass bed, and then an image sensor moves underneath the glass to record a digital version of the item; that file is then saved to your computer. Many flatbed scanners also include adapters for scanning different film formats.

You can pick up a basic flatbed scanner for as little as $50, but we've found that many of these inexpensive scanners use inferior optics that result in lost detail, inaccurate color, and other problems. For archival projects, you'll want to get the best information possible out of your scans. So spend a little more (at least $100) for a good scanner.

Resolution (the number of dots per inch [dpi] that a scanner can capture) and bit depth (the number of colors a scanner can detect) were once top considerations when shopping for a scanner. In general, thanks to improvements in scanning technology, resolution and bit depth aren't main factors anymore. Almost all of the scanners on the market today offer a resolution of at least 2400 dpi. And scanners record either 24-bit or 48-bit color (the more bits, the more accurate the scan will be). The three flatbed scanners that we reviewed actually have a higher resolution of 4800 dpi and record 48-bit color. That's more than adequate for archiving prints that are 4 by 6, 5 by 7, or 8 by 10 inches.

If you want to scan photo negatives or slides, make sure that any...