Dont be fooled into paying a photo scanner extra money to scan your typical photographs at higher than 300 dpi. Just because a scanning services offers photo scanning at 600 and 1200 dpi doesn't mean that you are actually getting a higher quality scan. What it means is that you are paying extra money for something you are not really getting.
Most people have not thought about the fact that a photograph's surface was not designed to reproduce an image like a negative is. So scanning a negative to enlarge a photograph makes sense, but a photo's surface does not have enough resolution.
Wasting money is not the only reason to scan at 300 dpi. Photo scanning beyond 300 dpi produces huge files that slow down just about any use of your scans. Editing, viewing, and working with your files will be slower, and possibly much slower. And you will probably have to change the size of your scan smaller to use it for just about anything.
If you are a professional photographer or someone with a great deal of expertise in photography and photo scanning then you have already developed an understanding of what your particular needs are. If you are not well versed in photo scanning and are just looking to scan your typical photographs then you need to check out Wayne Fultons excellent article on this and other scanning topics at www.scantips.com.
Your photo scanner should save your photos as a high quality jpeg. High Quality denotes that the jpeg has been saved at a low compression with negligible quality loss. Higher compression means smaller files but also lower quality. You can always make your photos files smaller with free photo editing software.
Dont rotate your original scans. When you send your photos in to be scanned, they are in a stack generally without consideration as to whether they are in portrait or landscape mode. Because rotating your jpeg scans recompresses them you can lose bits of information and suffer reduced image quality. Make sure you make copies of your original master scans to rotate.
Photo enhancement can require that your jpeg scans are re-compressed. This can diminish their quality if it is repeated frequently. Make sure your photo scanning service creates a copy of your original scans to enhance. You may feel that you can do better on some photos than what automatic enhancement provides. In that case you will want to go to your master scans, and make a new copy to start from.
If your photo scanning service offers inexpensive automatic photo enhancement it might be wise to take advantage of it. Even though there are lots of good free photo editing software out there it can be extremely time consuming and boring. So let the photo scanner run your photos through the automatic enhancement program especially if this is a low cost service, and save the manual improvement for a few really special photographs. You can also purchase automatic enhancement software, but trying to figure which ones actually work can be a daunting task. - 30452
Most people have not thought about the fact that a photograph's surface was not designed to reproduce an image like a negative is. So scanning a negative to enlarge a photograph makes sense, but a photo's surface does not have enough resolution.
Wasting money is not the only reason to scan at 300 dpi. Photo scanning beyond 300 dpi produces huge files that slow down just about any use of your scans. Editing, viewing, and working with your files will be slower, and possibly much slower. And you will probably have to change the size of your scan smaller to use it for just about anything.
If you are a professional photographer or someone with a great deal of expertise in photography and photo scanning then you have already developed an understanding of what your particular needs are. If you are not well versed in photo scanning and are just looking to scan your typical photographs then you need to check out Wayne Fultons excellent article on this and other scanning topics at www.scantips.com.
Your photo scanner should save your photos as a high quality jpeg. High Quality denotes that the jpeg has been saved at a low compression with negligible quality loss. Higher compression means smaller files but also lower quality. You can always make your photos files smaller with free photo editing software.
Dont rotate your original scans. When you send your photos in to be scanned, they are in a stack generally without consideration as to whether they are in portrait or landscape mode. Because rotating your jpeg scans recompresses them you can lose bits of information and suffer reduced image quality. Make sure you make copies of your original master scans to rotate.
Photo enhancement can require that your jpeg scans are re-compressed. This can diminish their quality if it is repeated frequently. Make sure your photo scanning service creates a copy of your original scans to enhance. You may feel that you can do better on some photos than what automatic enhancement provides. In that case you will want to go to your master scans, and make a new copy to start from.
If your photo scanning service offers inexpensive automatic photo enhancement it might be wise to take advantage of it. Even though there are lots of good free photo editing software out there it can be extremely time consuming and boring. So let the photo scanner run your photos through the automatic enhancement program especially if this is a low cost service, and save the manual improvement for a few really special photographs. You can also purchase automatic enhancement software, but trying to figure which ones actually work can be a daunting task. - 30452
About the Author:
If your family's precious photographic memories have not been permanently preserved then you need to find out more about photo scanning services . Pete Fontaine provides more helpful information at his web page www.nickelscan.com
