Photo scanning and formats
What would a family history project be without
family photos? You can perform miracles with deteriorating photos once they are
scanned into the computer.
Digitizing photos
The only way to get old photos into your computer is to scan them.
You can buy a good scanner for around $100 from Epson, Canon, or HP that will do a good job. Many all-in-one (printer, scanner, fax) machines are about the same price.
Epson Perfection V300 Photo Scanner, 4800 dpi
resolution, approx. $100 (shown here)
What to look for when purchasing a scanner:
- Flatbed scanner designed to scan photos. (Some scanners have a 35mm film and transparency feature).
- Highest resolution your budget will allow, a minimum of 2400 dpi (dots per inch), and 48 bit color.
Start with Clean photos and scanning surface. Some dust is unavoidable. Save yourself editing
time spent cleaning up dust on your photos by making sure all is as dust free
as you can make it before you start to scan.
1. Wipe down desk
top and outside of scanner with a damp cloth to raise humidity.
2. Wipe glass scanning
surface with anti-static cloth.
3. Blow dust
from photos with compressed air and/or use an anti-static brush.
4. Handle photos, negatives, and slides by their edges with clean hands.
For extra precaution, wear lint-free gloves.
Scan at the highest resolution your
computer can handle during photo
editing. 300 to 600 dpi will produce a good quality image with a reasonable
file size. Even though images on the internet are 72-96 dpi, edit them in high
resolution. When you “save for the web” the dpi gets reduced but the high
resolution information is packed into each pixel.
Save
as uncompressed TIFF files. Don’t use the scanner as a photo editor. Save all
those adjustments for your photo editing program. When you are finished with
your scanning session, burn these unedited (raw) TIFF files onto a storage device. That way
you will always have an original to start over with if things go wrong during
editing.
Photo formats
Choosing
which photo format to use depends on what you plan to do with the images. Some
are better for the internet (compressed to small files), others better for
print (uncompressed).
Some
formats recompress frequently, losing information with each compression. These
programs are referred to as lossy. Formats that do not recompress or
lose information during editing are lossless. Images edited in lossless
formats produce much larger files than those edited with a lossy format. The
most popular photo formats are TIFF, PSD, JPEG, and PNG.
- TIFF is
lossless. Supported by many programs. Excellent for scanning, archiving,
editing, and print. Preferred by printing industry because of the way it
handles color. Not good for sharing or the internet.
- PSD is the lossless, layered format used by Photoshop.
Excellent for scanning, archiving, editing, and print. Preferred by graphic
designers because of its versatility. Not good for sharing or the internet.
- JPEG is
lossy. Produces small file size. Sharable and good for the internet.
Edit in another format and change to JPEG as final output. JPEG can be opened
by most programs.
- PNG is lossless and layered. Good for editing. Can be
used on the internet, but not as well supported as JPEG. Handles color well.
- GIF is
lossy. Best suited for small, simple illustrations. Very small file size. Good
for internet. Not good for photo editing or output.
More Photo Editing
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Copyright September 2009 Family History Coach. All rights reserved Last update April 27, 2010
