Photo by Sasint

The task before you is formidable.

“Maybe we should climb Mt. Everest Instead, ” asks your sister earnestly. “Seems like that would be easier.”

Bonnie’s mother had 23 boxes of photos. About 4 cubic yards of photos. Many absolute treasures from the 1900s.

Where do you even start?

What Is the Goal of Scanning the Photos?

Do you want to archive and document everything?

Do you want to select the most representative photos for a presentation for her Celebration of Life?

Do you want to tell the Family Story represented in the photos?

Scan Em All!

There are some good reasons to consider scanning them all, especially if you are worried about them being lost or damaged. Or you are tired of paying for storage and no one wants to take the boxes.

Most of the tips here will apply. Just allow a lot of time and try to make it a fun activity you do with other family members.

Select Photos for a Special Occassion

The most likely reason you are wanting the climb Mount Kodak is that you want to create a biography or special slide show for an occasion such as a wedding, birthday, anniversary, or memorial.

Choose An Organization Plan

Adobe, Apple, and others have platforms for organizing your photos, including tagging and adding descriptions.

However, I prefer to avoid these proprietary systems that seem to have a logic that is not always obvious and does not translate across computers and operating systems.

So I recommend simply using a folder system that makes sense to you.

For Example:

  • Simpson Family Photos
    • Homer and Marges Wedding 19xx
    • Bart’s Baby Photos
    • Whatever makes sense to you

Naming Conventions

When you start scanning into the folders or copying photos from digital cameras, will want to give each one a descriptive name.

Eventually.

In order not to lose your mind on the first day, I suggest that your approach sorting and naming in separate passes:

  1. Copy/Scan the photos into the appropriate folders.
  2. Go back and process and name each photo you are interested.

If you try naming the photos as you scan them, they will possibly be working on your memorial before you get through them.

Or you will lose steam and stop.

If possible, get others to do the naming while you scan. Using something like Google Photos will allow family members around the world to help with this.

The naming convention I use is to keep the original scan number or number from the camera and add descriptive text.

For example:

P1922099_aunt_martha_kissing_uncle_bob_1978.jpg

It is up to you if you choose to point out that they were married to different people at the time.

Or not.

Scanning Versus Photographing

An alternative to using a scanner is to use a good camera to photograph each photo.

With attention to lighting, angle, and focus, you can capture images with equal or better quality than scanning.

And sometimes taking photos out of albums is difficult without damaging the photos.

The main reason is speed.

In the case with the mountain of 23 boxes of photos from Bonnie’s mother, it is highly unlikely to ever get her family together to sort and scan.

However, it may be possible for them to sort through and pass to me to photograph. Then I would do some processing and put them online for naming.

You might have someone scanning too, but I think taking photos will be around ten times faster.

However, the one advantage of scanning is you can do some cropping and adjusting in the scanner.

Images from the camera will almost surely need to be cropped and adjusted before use.

You will want to test taking photos and also scanning the same images to fine-tune your technique and compare quality.

Focus will not be an issue with a good scanner. It could be and issue with a camera.

Scan Resolution

Your scanner will have an overwhelming number of resolution options.

If your main intention is to use online and in slide presentations, then 300 dpi will work for most photos.

If you want to print, then perhaps 600 dpi for small photos is better. You will end up with larger file sizes and may need to export to smaller file sizes for use on the web.

If your purpose is to archive for future use, then a higher resolution is a better choice.

You can always reduce without losing quality.

Printing low resolution images large will have poor quality.

Get To Know Your Scanner

Spend some time getting familiar with your scanner and it settings before going into a scanning frenzy. Scan the same image with different settings and check the results.

Its A Miracle!

Some scanners have filters that you can apply when scanning, like scratch removal and automatic balance correction.

Many of the photos will be faded and discolored to the point of looking monochrome. Many scanners have an option to fix that, often nicely balanced colour photos.

And sometimes they will make a photo worse, so you deselect the option for the photo.

We will provide a detailed look at scanning settings in the future.

For now, I hope the suggestions here help make the task seem less daunting than climbing Mount Everest.

Need Help?

We can coach you through the process or some or all of it for you.

Contact us for a FREE Consolation.

info@tellyourstory.productions
1-833-333-1969 Toll Free

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