Old Pictures

[JPMNICK]

So I am in a massive picture project. I am trying to take all my old family photo's, which are in old shitty albums, boxes, still in the package from the store and trying to scan them

the problem is my scanner is not that great, the glass is a little scratched and it shows up when I scan. Also, it is really slow and labor intensive.

my question is, I have gotten pretty good results taking high res digital photo's of my old photo's. It seems to be working really well, almost to well.

what are the drawbacks to this method? do you think this is better than scanning? the pics seem to be much better in quality.

[PapaBear]

I'm surprised they are coming out better. Maybe your scanner is just that bad. I've been doing the same project (off and on) for a couple of years. Though I've never done copies of photos with a digital camera, I've done lots of copy negatives. I was very excited when high quality scanners came out, because copy negs were never very good.

My print scanner is only around 12 to 18 hundred dpi (can't really remember) but it does a very good job. I also use Konica/Minolta Scan Dual IV for scanning negs and slides. Those copies are sometimes amazing. I've scanned barely visible slides, and ended up with pretty nice prints.

[JPMNICK]

I know scanning a negative is 10x better resolution. scanning a pic is around 300dpi while a negative can be scanned at 3000dpi.

maybe it is my scanner. It is a multifunction HP scanner. maybe i should mess with the settings.

[PapaBear]

I just looked up the specs on the print scanner...


Scanning area: 8.5 x 11.7 inches
Resolution: 4800 x 2400 dpi, optical
Color depth: 48-bit color
Light source: Cold flourescent
Image sensor: Sigma-6 CCD


A little better than I remembered

[Ritalin]

Depending on how many images you have to do, you might be better off sending them out to be done.

You should also test your results, because there's a big difference between what you see on your screen (where your scan might look pretty good) and what you actually get when you print it. If you're going to print it on your desktop printer, try some out before you go much further. If you're going to send the scans out to be printed - like on ofoto or some service like that - then send a couple out before you go too much further.

There are a lot of issues with scanning that don't crop up until you see it in print. Dust - on the film or on the scan bed - is a big one.

[JPMNICK]

Depending on how many images you have to do, you might be better off sending them out to be done.

You should also test your results, because there's a big difference between what you see on your screen (where your scan might look pretty good) and what you actually get when you print it. If you're going to print it on your desktop printer, try some out before you go much further. If you're going to send the scans out to be printed - like on ofoto or some service like that - then send a couple out before you go too much further.

There are a lot of issues with scanning that don't crop up until you see it in print. Dust - on the film or on the scan bed - is a big one.

I had not thought of that, thanks!

i was not planning on reprinting any of them. My sister is going to put the originals into a new photo album. I am taking the scans and putting them into a DVD slideshow to give to my parents as a gift.

[suggums]

New, decent scanners don't go for more than 100, and if you want something really good but still for home use, expect to spend up to twice that. This Canon model looks great:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2135634,00.asp (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2135634,00.asp)

I've just got a $100 all-in-one HP printer/scanner/copier that works for me, the scanner gets 19200 ppi maxxed out.

[MadMatt]

I had not thought of that, thanks!

i was not planning on reprinting any of them. My sister is going to put the originals into a new photo album. I am taking the scans and putting them into a DVD slideshow to give to my parents as a gift.

Given that bit of info, it is "6 of one..." IMO.

If you are getting good reults by taking digital pics of the originals, that may be all you need. Of course you need to make sure that the pics look good enlarged if you are goint to put them on TV via your DVD. It's almost the same issue as above related to printing the pics - the larger you go the more you are going to see, or your resolution is going to bottom out and the pics will look grainy/out of focus.

However, since good scanners are relatively cheap at this point you may want think about investing in one. Especially if your current scanner is a POS, it may help to upgrade your equipment.

Depending on the size of the bed, you may be able to scan multiple pics at once then "cut" them into separate images for digital manipulation. That can help a lot when doing a big project.