Inexpensive Photo Scanning Information

If you’re not going to enlarge your digital scans then don’t pay to have them scanned at a higher resolution than 300 dpi. Even if you will be enlarging them you are probably wasting your money. 600 and 1200 dpi scanning services do not mean better scans, but they do mean higher prices. For your typical photographs 300 dpi is the wisest choice.

There might be a reason to scan at 600 or 1200 dpi if you were scanning from a negative because they are designed to to hold and transfer much more information than a photograph surface. So if you plan to enlarge images try scanning the negatives. Resolution that would require scanning a photo’s surface at higher than 300 dpi just isn’t there.

Photo scanning typical photographs at higher than 300 dpi has a downside beyond the extra cost. Higher resolutions create bigger files and that means slower loading and bigger file storage requirements. Most of the uses that people scan their ordinary photos for require smaller files and that means resizing your 600 and 1200 dpi files smaller. Thats time consuming and wasteful.

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.

Make sure that your scanned photos are saved as a high quality jpeg. Photos saved in a jpeg format are compressed to lower the file size. High compression causes the jpeg to loose bits of information that are gone forever. High quality jpegs have very low compression and lose very little.

Whether you rotate your own photos after scanning or the scanning service does it make sure that you dont rotate the original scans. Most photo scanners require that your photos be in a stack when you send them in without regard to their orientation. Because your photos are recompressed during the rotation process you may loose bits of information and that can reduce your image quality. So keep your master scans untouched and use a copy to rotate or manipulate.

Create copies of your master scans to use in any digital manipulation. If your photo scanning service offers manual or automatic photo enhancement make sure that they only manipulate copies of the master scans. Automatic enhancement programs can make your photos look better. But they dont make all of your photos look their best.

There are all kinds of software both manual and automatic available to edit your photo scans. The manual editing software offers you complete control and unlimited do-overs. The automatic versions do a lot of good to most of your images and some good to the rest. Manual enhancement should probably only be used for those very special photographs otherwise you will be bored silly. Trying to choose an automatic enhancement software can be tricky because it takes some experimentation to discover which ones actually work. If your photo scanning service provides economical automatic enhancement that may be your best bet.