Some hand scanners include software that allows you to stitch separate scans together. How well this process works depends more on the steadiness of your hand than on the software. Hand scanners formerly were the most popular types of scanner available, but as the price of desktop scanners dropped, their popularity decreased. This class of scanner is a compact desktop device specifically designed to scan snapshot-sized photographs. You insert a print, press a button, and the snapshot is scanned.
Flatbed scanners look like small copy machines, and there are similarities in how they work.
The bewildering variety of flatbed scanners makes selection problematic. Shopping for a flatbed scanner is a matter of determining what type of images you want to digitize along with what format your final output will take. Determining the maximum size of your original images will tell you how large the glass-top scanning area must be. Next, decide the resolution of your output. For the best-quality output, make sure the resolution of the scanner exceeds your output device.