Scanning Paper Prints to Digital Photos on Your Hard Disk

By: Ziv Haparnas
Submitted: 2007-01-17 11:23:04
Print this article | Tell a friend | For publisher | Social Bookmarking
Rating:
 

Sometimes you find yourself in a situation when you have to scan paper prints, negatives or slides and store them as digital photos on your computer. Although the reason for doing that can vary there are some common considerations to scanning paper prints. In this article we will go over some of them and try to make your scanning experience easier.

There are three types of prints that you might be scanning:

  • Paper prints: the most common, usually at sizes like 4X6 and 5X7.
  • Negatives: also known simply as film. This is the processed film usually 35mm from which paper prints are made.
  • Slides: very similar to negatives used for projecting photos on a large screen.

    • Scanning paper photos prints.

    Photo paper prints are easy to scan. You can choose to scan them yourself at home (purchasing a scanner that can do the job is usually cheap and costs less than a $100). You can also choose to mail them (or hand them) to a professional scanning service that will scan them for you and mail you back the originals and a DVD with the digital scans (such services include www.digmypics.com, www.digitalpickle.com, www.britepix.com and many more)

    There are pros and cons to both scanning at home and using a professional service. If you have a small number of photos scanning at home is easier. If you have plenty of photos using a service might be easier but you can end up spending more money. When scanning at home consider the following:

  • Resolution: the resolution of a scan is measured by the number of dots per inch that the scanner can produce. Most scanners can scan at 1200 DPI or more. Usually the scanner can be set to scan at different resolutions. The higher the resolution the slower the scan and the bigger the photo file size will be. For most paper prints scanning at 300 to 600 DPI is enough but you can experiment scanning at higher resolutions if you feel it provides better results.
  • Speed: If you have a small number of photos speed is not an issue. If you have hundreds or more of photos scanning speed becomes important. To get fast scans you would have to scan at the lowest resolution possible that results in good enough scans – for most paper prints 300 to 600 DPI is enough.. Also if you’re going to buy a scanner check the scanning speed (usually measured in the number of scans per minute make sure that you check the speed at the DPI you’re going to use).
  • Photo feeding: if you only have a small number of photos this is not an issue. If you have many photos make sure that the scanner you buy allows fast and easy loading of photos. Some higher-end scanners will let you load a stack of photos and will automatically feed and scan them for you. These scanners are the right choice if you are planning on scanning hundreds or more photos.

    • Scanning negatives and slides

    Scanning negatives and slides is harder than scanning paper prints. In most cases it is easier and maybe cheaper to use a professional scanning service (such services include www.slidescanning.com, www.myspecialphotos.com, www.pixmonix.com and many more). If you want to scan at home your standard flat scanner will not be good enough. In most cases you will need to spend money on purchasing a film/slides scanner. Those scanners are more expensive than the flat paper scanners. Negatives and slides are small high resolution sources and thus require scanning at higher DPI than paper prints. In most cases 2400DPI or higher should be used.

    The considerations for scanning negatives and slides are similar to scanning paper prints. If you need to scan just a few negatives or slides speed and ease are not important but if you’re going to scan hundreds or more you should spend more money on scanners that can feed the negatives or slides automatically or can just load a roll of film and scan it.

    Ziv Haparnas is a technology veteran and writes about practical technology and science issues. This article can be reprinted and used as long as the resource box including the backlink is included. You can find more information about photo album printing and photography in general on http://www.printrates.com - a site dedicated to photo printing.

    Article source: Expert Articles

    Most Recent Articles in Photography category

    • Different Tripod Heads for Photography - By: Rianne de Leon
      Tripods are mainly used to prevent camera movement and provide shooting stability for both still and motion photography. Specifically for slow-speed exposures or when using telephoto lenses, tripods are being used to avoid getting blurred images once the shutter is open and the camera moves or shakes. Précised framing of images is also achieved when tripods are utilized when bracketing the exposure. Aside from professional photography, it can also be used for video recordings, holding telescopes, binoculars, etc.
    • Choosing Best Slide and 35mm Negative Scanning Service - By: Brite Pix
      A digital image is type of image, which is captured from digital camera or a scanner or computer.
    • How to Scan Transparency - By: Brite Pix
      There is a chance that while collecting your family negatives or slides, you receive a bunch of negative or slides.
    • Negative Scanning Tips - By: Brite Pix
      The term negative scanning is used in both film slides and photo negatives.
    • Scan Print - By: Brite Pix
      The scanners are the tools, which convert drawings, images, printed texts, handwritings to digital formats.
    • Converting Photos to Digital Format - By: Brite Pix
      Photos are very useful for us to remember our past life and memories.
    • Options to Convert Photos - By: Brite Pix
      Though you have a digital camera currently with you, but you may not have all of your photos in digital format.
    • How to Convert Slides to CD - By: Brite Pix
      You can convert your slides to CD at cheapest prices and also the quality of this conversion is very high.
    • 35mm Slide Converter - By: Brite Pix
      The slides can be viewed and presented in many ways.
    • Slides to CD - By: Brite Pix
      The photography is one of the important areas that have been developing very quickly in today's technology.