Scanning multiple photos

[BnDmedia]

Super Dave,

Your "accepted solution" will not work for all of us who have printers that we purchased over the last several years. Your version 30 dirver update is not available for my HP6500A Plus AIO (current version is 28.8). I can see from comments on this website that other HP users have the same issue. You guys broke the driver for us, now you need to fix the driver for us. It's been two years, more than enough time, I thnk, to fix the problem that you created. I remember when people used to say that HP was a great printer company. No more. You have made a lot of your long time customers mad enough to spend their money on other brands (that still have multiple picture scanning feature).  Even though I still have my HP6500 for print and fax, I spent my money on an Epson scanner that does a beautiful job of scanning multiple pictures. When the 6500 needs replaced, it probably won't be an HP.

[finchhawk]

Like BnDmedia points out, this is a long term problem. Obviously, there has been no effort to introduce the new driver to older printers. That is not "customer support." Most of the printers that people bought are refered to as "Photosmart." It does not seem very "smart" to not be able to scan and automatically crop multiple photos in one scan when many previous models that we are led to believe are now inferior would do just that with older software. Also it seems pretty unfriendly on HP's side to not have a fix for these customers.

I am particularly upset, since I not only bought one of these printers (which I suppose would be current as it is still in the product list for HP's offerings for purchase), but that I sold these printers to my customers that were looking for exactly that type of functionality after being told by the reps that the printers would do this simple thing. Can you really blame a person for thinking that a printer that says "Photosmart" on the box would have this feature included? It really isn't unfixable as SuperDave has already pointed out that there is a newer driver. It sounds to me like HP is purposely making their printers obsolete by not providing a driver upgrade for the printers that the people currently have that were bought with the idea that the printer would handle photographic handling requirements that a scanner is used for.

So yeah... It seems like an easy and quick fix to most of us to release your newer driver for the whole Photosmart series that missed out on this feature. This is obviously a simple software issue and not a hardware issue, so what is the difficulty? I was informed that these printers also have upgradable firmware. That should be easy enough to fix if necessary.

Also, the ENVY 5530 is priced at around $129 and uses a dual cartridge system (this would be a downgrade for many that bought 4 or 5 cartridge printers and viewed as a waste of ink to many) whereas the Photosmart 7520, for example, which is sold for around $199 has not been upgraded to the new driver. Why is this so hard for HP to fix?

I can keep going, but I'll stop there for now.

[v_j_b]

So can I update my new hp6700 with a new driver?

[agarino3]

There used to be a post letting us know of a 3rd party software that we could use with the printers to scan multiple photos at once.. it seems the moderator removed it. 

It is called ScanSpeeder.  Google it and you will find the webpage and software.  It works great. 

[BeatriceBlake]

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@Super_Dave wrote:

Hi v_j_b,

The feature was restored with driver version 30.0.  Current models such as the Envy 5530 AiO do have this version and can scan multiple photos at once into individual files.

Not all models of printer can use driver version 30.

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Then the issue is NOT resolved for a large number of your customers.  I purchased a Laserjet 100 MFP in 2013 -- doesn't that count as a "current model"?  Yet there is no driver upgrade for this model.

I don't believe HP understands how angry we are about this.  You sold us printers with LESS functionality than the industry standard.  Fixing this would require nothing more than a simple driver upgrade.  Yet you do not fix it.  And you claim it's not a problem.  Well, for me it's not a problem any longer because I went back to using my old Canon scanner and I will never buy an HP product again. 

That's a resolution I guess -- but it's hardly the resolution HP should want.  Is that really the best HP can do?

[briankirkkelly]

I ended up hooking my old Lexmark Interact s605 which i replaced with the HP Officejet 6700 Premium (what a mistake)... Scanning multiple pics like a champ.  I may wait until my 6700 runs out of ink and throw it on Ebay. 

[bobf99]

HP should be ashamed of themselves.  No wonder they are having consumer problems.  I am returning this printer to Costco ASAP -- this is ridiculous, a horrible consumer fraud.  There is no warning whatsoever on the packaging or literature that says HP has decided to making the scanner virtually worth less on this printer!!

[bobf99]

Thanks!  This is a great solution -- works even better than older HP versions.  Again, shame on HP for not doing this themselves!!

[Snaggleschan]

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@Caritana wrote:

This answer is a bit late, but I had a similar problem just recently.

I found out that AutoSplitter will replace the lost functionality in HP drivers. This program will recognize your photos in your scan and separate them. It will also rotate them to vertical/horizontal position, so a lot of time will be saved!

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I couldn't tell from their website. How much does this software cost? I don't want to download it and then have them hold the software hostage for an insurmountable cost.

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Also, so that I'm not triple posting, here is a FREE software solution from another forum thread (sadly the solution isn't from HP):

The solution was offered by Jason_h on this thread . While I love any kudos you give me for this, please be sure to give him kudos as well; this is not my solution. I only copied it here for your convenience.  It's a workaround solution to your issue that even my little sister knew about (she wasn't available to ask until later).  Please take a look at the information in the link provided below:

http://francoismalan.com/2013/01/how-to-batch-separate-crop-multiple-scanned-photos/

This will show you how to batch scan and separate photo files using GIMP which is a free downloadable software.

I have a solution to offer as well. It isn't free but will save you the most amount of time...because you aren't the one doing the work: send your negative, photos, slides, polaroids, and so on to a scanning company and have them digitally put it on a DVD for you (there are some companies that can even copy 8 mm films, VHS cassettes and other similar media). The one I was the most impressed with both in price and what they offered is ScanCafe. They have rave reviews and a decent price--$0.29-0.22 per photo (I've read it can be as cheap as $0.19 if you sign up for their emailed coupon)--and that price includes  retouching your photo/negatives. There are some other services that will only scan your photos and charge extra to retouch them. (btw I am not a ScanCafe employee, just someone who did her research on several services and was the most impressed with them).

[Snaggleschan]

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@Super_Dave wrote:

Hi v_j_b,

The feature was restored with driver version 30.0.  Current models such as the Envy 5530 AiO do have this version and can scan multiple photos at once into individual files.

Not all models of printer can use driver version 30.

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Hey Super_Dave, how do we find out if our model is one that can use the driver?