Tips for Scanning Old Photos

by PC Smart

sandbox serendipity (my art blog)



You just found a treasure trove of old family photos - congratulations! But now your sister, cousins and nieces all want copies! By scanning in the originals, you can save the photos to discs, memory sticks or make reprints. While you are at it, allow the scanner to do some photo corrections. Some scanners have built in photo fixing software that you can play with to adjust the images. Here are just a couple of simple tricks you can do with any scanner....
Sometimes you will findthe photo will have a border or a scalloped edge. To keep that edge crisp and not have it fade into the white of the scanner lid, place a black sheet of paper behind the photos before scanning.


When scanning b/w photos that are faded, yellowed or dirty...try scanning them as b/w photos instead of color. Here you can see the difference between the photo on the left which was scanned as a b/w photo and the one on the right which is the same photo scanned as a color photo.

A trick for small sized vintage photos is to scan them as a b/w photo and scan at a very high resolution (600dpi). This will allow you to enlarge them without losing detail.