Saturday School: Tips for Scanning

Hi Everyone!  Jenn (jk703) here to share a few tips with you!  So happy it is Saturday!  The end of the month is always a lot of work for me so I'm planning to get my scrap on this weekend and relax!

I'm sure that you are like me... you have so many pictures to scrap, but there is a part of you that wants to scrap the past... pictures that are not digital.  I've been thinking about putting together an album for my parents about their own parents.  I want to record things about my grandparents from THEM, and then share it with my parents.  I think it would be a treasure for when they are not around.  So, you have all these old pictures - what to do?  Buy, borrow or steal... ok, no stealing please... a scanner and get it all hooked up. There are a few guidelines when scanning pictures, memorabilia, negatives or most anything so that you can get the best scans possible.

Top Scanning Tips:


Cleanliness
Keep it clean, the glass, scanner itself, and the area around your scanner.  Dirty areas lead to dirt on the scanner glass, which in turn leaves problems with your scanned images. Check the items that you are scanning for dirt, lint, and smudges.  This will help when you edit the images later on.

Positioning
Carefully smooth away any creases, and bent areas to prevent a skewed area or distortion of the scanned image. Place your image face down on the glass, and position it as the scanner indicates.  Most scanners have a preview button.  Run the preview to see what it will look like.  Re-position as necessary. You want to look to see if the photo is straight, no smudges or lint, and to make sure that you got the whole image.

Scan Resolution and Storage
You will need to determine what resolution you want to scan your items.  The best resolution will depend on how you will use/save the image. Whether they will be printed, saved, or displayed needs to be determined before scanning. A good rule of thumb is to scan your photos at a minimum of 300dpi to really get a decent quality, or 600dpi or greater is even better for storing these images on CD or DVD. Check that you have ample space to store your images... a 4x6 image at 300 dpi is about 5-6 MB.

Edit: After
There are so many things that you can do to photos nowadays, that you should scan the image or item in without making any corrections before or during the scan.  The rule of thumb about scanning is that you Scan, Save, Play.  Scan your image in, save your image, and then tweak your image.  You can adjust brightness, contrast and all the other little edits after it is scanned and saved.  Scan in original format.. and color... you can go from color to black and white, but it is much harder to restore the color later on down the road.

Back Up
Save your images, and then back them up in another location other than your hard drive.  You will thank yourself the day you start having computer problems. Simple and so effective.


I hope you can go and pull out some old images and scan them in.  I'm going to pester my grandparents for pictures of them as kids and growing up, as well as pictures of my parents!
If you have any questions, let me know.  I'll be sure to help you out!  Have a great Saturday everyone, and thanks for stopping by!

Jenn
(jk703/The Typative Scrapper)