There currently is a Brother all in one right now on sale at Costco (8810)that does duplex scanning in addition to everything else. For $350 it is a good deal for the features. With this you can scan the articles easily without stopping to scan each side. As to photos, no matter what you get you are going to need to put each one on the flatbed and scan. A good scanner will include software that will save to a variety of file types including PDF. Your old photos will be saved as individual jpgs. We currently have an older model of the Brother and are considering this newer model just because of the duplexing features for scan and print. Quality is good. This is not a portable unit. It requires some space and is not easily moved around but it sounds like you want this for home and not the TT.