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digital photo requirements

preparing to scan

Remove your photo from its frame or album sleeve—Glass and plastic can cause glare and distortion, and will sometimes make it appear darker than it really is. Next, with a soft lint-free cloth, gently wipe your photo to remove dust particles and hairs. Do the same with your scanner bed.

scanner settings

Both colour and black & white photos should be scanned at 300 dpi. A higher dpi rarely yeilds more detail—It only increases the file size.

There is some debate about whether vintage black & white photos benefit from being scanned at 400 dpi or higher. My own experience is, it does not make a difference. Treat it the same as you would a colour print, and do not save as "Grey Scale".

saving scanned images

Step 1:
If your scanner software allows it, crop off the overspill, but don't crop too close to the edges of the picture. It's best to leave some extra room for straightening and recentering. For help with sizing & dimensions, see: Resolution & Aspect Ratio. Don't worry about getting it exact to the pixel.
Step 2:
For a descent quality master image, save as TIF or BMP.
Step 3:
The reason for for Step 3 is to reduce file size (not to be confused with resizing!)—You'e not changing the size or dimensions of the photo, just reducing its weight. Re-open the file in your graphics editor and save as new JPG—with the lowest compression value selected. This could be an option under "Save As", something like "JPG Quality" or "JPG Compression". If you see nothing like this, try: File » Export and look for "JPG Optimizer". (That's where it is in Paint Shop Pro). I can't stress the importance of this enough. The default "Save As" compression value in some graphics editors will produce artifacts which ruin it for editing. If the option is called "Quality", select "Highest" (or 100). If it's called "Compression", select the lowest number. Digital cameras have a similar option, but this must be set before taking pictures. This JPG copy will be smaller and easier to send by email.

If you're having problems and your master file is under 6 MB, just send it "as is". If you have a number of photos, you will have to burn them to a CD-ROM and send this to me by regular mail.

One final note regarding compression. Never add image files to a zip archive. Programs like Winzip use compression. They will completely destroy a JPG.

Need more help? Check out Scantips.com. This well-organized Site has everything you need to know about scanning photos. (Easy to understand.)

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