Tapes get a lot of the attention, but for plenty of us the bigger pile is photographic: shoeboxes of prints, carousels of slides, strips of negatives, and reels of 8mm or Super 8 cine film. This is the room for getting all of that — anything optical — into digital.

Whether you're using a flatbed scanner, a dedicated film/slide scanner, a camera rig ("DSLR scanning"), or running cine film through a telecine, the questions tend to rhyme: what resolution (DPI) do I actually need, how do I get the colour right, and how on earth do I get through hundreds without losing my mind? If you're starting with photos, Capturing analog photography — Part I is a good first read.

So — what are you scanning, and with what? Prints, slides, negatives, 8mm film? Tell me your gear and what's tripping you up (resolution, dust and scratches, colour casts, or just the sheer volume) and we'll work it out together. No question's too basic here.