This is by far the best video I've seen on scanning old photos and documents. I actually work in metadata and still photography so I know a good deal of this, but on a personal note, I have tons of material from my family which I have been desperately trying to organize over the years. I am now attempting to scan everything. The information and the way you have explained it, has been invaluable. I am the only one in my family who cares about this stuff and I'm also obsessed with old photos. If I come across people in photos I don't know, I will find out, and I usually do. I will still scan and donate to a historical society, especially if I know the city and state it was taken. I'm also into genealogy and the documents and photos I have are invaluable to that. Thank you so much, again, the best!! Great work!
On rotating a JPG, it depends on the software doing the rotating. The JPG standard contains metadata that indicates rotation of 0°, 90°, 180°, or 270° from the original. If the software modifies this rotation flag, then a rotation does not change the image data and there is not a recompression. If the software rotates the image without changing this metadata, then it does a recompression and data is lost. Metadata management software will typically use the metadata change. Image editing software is more of a mixed bag. If you are making other image changes (crop, color correction, etc.) then the rotation without changing the meta data doesn't hurt. If you open the image, make all the changes needed, then save the image, there is only one recompression.
Brilliant and well presented. I thought I knew all about dpi and ppi but I now have a MUCH better understanding of it. Never knew about the archivists recommendation of 4000 pixels on the longest side. Makes a helluva lot of sense. Thank you.
Unfortunately, scanning a tiny print at high resolution will run into the grain of the film. Also prefer negatives and slides instead of prints for scanning as those are generation 1.
This was really good. My photos still don't scan great because I realize the paper that the photos are printed on is not dead flat. So it ends up looking grainy. So even if I'm meticulous about wiping dust off the photo and scanning bed, it still looks grainy on the digital image. I imagine there would be a class on how to doctor photos using Photoshop to get them back to their "original" look in analog form.
I feel your pain! Unfortunately, there isn't an effective way to fix that "grain" in scans of textured paper, even in Photoshop. There are filters you can apply, but they tend to blur the entire image overall and can eliminate important detail. Our eyes/brains can see the entire image when viewing such paper, but reproducing that in 2-D is tough. Sometimes I've had better results by photographing the image in extremely even light, but the lighting and the paper has to be absolutely flat, so it's not easy.
Enjoyed and learnt some tips. Will say the Google photos free version does compress files but only so Google can save storage space.. If you download files they return to full resolution files on download. 🙂
It takes a while but when you are scanning a photo album, i scan the entire page. I have found faded out writing on the photo pages upon review with a scanner and high resolution screen. Of course I also scan the photos individually.
I’ve just started taking a digital photo (iPhone) of album pages & save each set of pages separately in Photos on my Mac, with original album & digital ‘album’ labelled with same ID number with approximate date range (eg Album #4; 1914-1945). Didn’t want to risk cracking spine of old albums; and my scanner plate is too small to take album page sizes. It’s already helping me match up people whose photos have been put in different albums despite being taken around the same time. And it will help make sure I put photo prints back in the right place after taking them out to scan them! Long, slow job, but worth the effort.
The '4000 px on the long side' mentioned by the archivist must have some specific purpose, like enlarging FROM the original dimensions. IF you are scanning for the purpose of the highest quality for reproducing the source/original photo at the original dimensions, the PPI is the exact same quality for any size. (300 ppi is the acceptable standard MINIMUM). Perhaps that archivist was referring to a specific photo dimension for 4000px.
Very well presented. I have gotten all my VHS on DVDs, have gotten my 8mm (professionally done) digitized and am getting ready to digitize a mass of photos. I expect to watch this video again. My great fear is doing a bunch of slides. Thanks for the video.
I'm wondering what the best way to reduce grain and do dust removal is: using scanner software settings when scanning, or when post-processing tifs in say Photoshop?
I always do mine in Photoshop after because I'm a control freak ;-) but if you have a lot to do, give your scanner settings a try and see how you like the results. Just don't get rid of the originals until you inspect all the scans. I once had a scanner with a dust removal tool that worked pretty well 90% of the time. On the other 10% it would obliterate people's eyeballs, reading them as giant dust spots.
@@picturesandstories1 Thank you so much for sharing all this useful information. I learned a lot about resolutions to use from these videos. It seems like the bright scanner light tends to amplify light surface scratches and abrasions on high gloss paper prints which aren't visible to naked eye without that intense glare. I've been scanning old polaroids and the scans look much more beat up than they do in person. I can fix in Lightroom. Scanner settings for dust removal only seem to apply to jpg, not tif.
After scanning all the old family photos as tiffs, should I make copies as tiffs to share on flash drives with family members? Or should I share them as jpegs?
If you have enough space on a flash drive, then you could just copy your tiffs. But if space is limited, making jpeg copies would be fine. Because you still have your tiffs safely backed up as your "digital negatives."
Liked the video! You said not to use pdf for photos or important documents which I don't. But I do pdfs for newspaper articles because I think they zoom very well and are very clear. I usually create the first page as just the clipping and the second page as the full newspaper page. And for letters, vital records, and of course photos, I used TIFF or JPEG.
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
This is by far the best video I've seen on scanning old photos and documents. I actually work in metadata and still photography so I know a good deal of this, but on a personal note, I have tons of material from my family which I have been desperately trying to organize over the years. I am now attempting to scan everything. The information and the way you have explained it, has been invaluable. I am the only one in my family who cares about this stuff and I'm also obsessed with old photos. If I come across people in photos I don't know, I will find out, and I usually do. I will still scan and donate to a historical society, especially if I know the city and state it was taken. I'm also into genealogy and the documents and photos I have are invaluable to that. Thank you so much, again, the best!! Great work!
This is an awesome presentation. I took a number of useful tips from it. Thank you!
BMP is the one exception to every file type being compressed.
On rotating a JPG, it depends on the software doing the rotating. The JPG standard contains metadata that indicates rotation of 0°, 90°, 180°, or 270° from the original. If the software modifies this rotation flag, then a rotation does not change the image data and there is not a recompression. If the software rotates the image without changing this metadata, then it does a recompression and data is lost.
Metadata management software will typically use the metadata change. Image editing software is more of a mixed bag.
If you are making other image changes (crop, color correction, etc.) then the rotation without changing the meta data doesn't hurt. If you open the image, make all the changes needed, then save the image, there is only one recompression.
Very informative and practical advice on digitizing photos and storage.
Great video packed with easy to understand information...thx
This is by far the best video I have seen about preserving photos/documents! Explained in a way that I understood! Well done!!
Brilliant and well presented. I thought I knew all about dpi and ppi but I now have a MUCH better understanding of it. Never knew about the archivists recommendation of 4000 pixels on the longest side. Makes a helluva lot of sense. Thank you.
Thanks, Neil, I'm so glad it was helpful!
Unfortunately, scanning a tiny print at high resolution will run into the grain of the film.
Also prefer negatives and slides instead of prints for scanning as those are generation 1.
Thank you so much for sharing this! Soooo valuable and your easy-going, humorous style keeps people interested. Well-done!
This has to be the best kept secret video on scanning that's on RUclips. There should be 10,000 views by now. Subscribed!
Thanks Ken! Glad it was helpful.
i just found a gem on youtube. thank you for the videos, i really needed something like these.
This was really good. My photos still don't scan great because I realize the paper that the photos are printed on is not dead flat. So it ends up looking grainy. So even if I'm meticulous about wiping dust off the photo and scanning bed, it still looks grainy on the digital image. I imagine there would be a class on how to doctor photos using Photoshop to get them back to their "original" look in analog form.
I feel your pain! Unfortunately, there isn't an effective way to fix that "grain" in scans of textured paper, even in Photoshop. There are filters you can apply, but they tend to blur the entire image overall and can eliminate important detail. Our eyes/brains can see the entire image when viewing such paper, but reproducing that in 2-D is tough. Sometimes I've had better results by photographing the image in extremely even light, but the lighting and the paper has to be absolutely flat, so it's not easy.
Wish there was a way to get more depth that 8bit grayscale, it always looks spotchy.
Enjoyed and learnt some tips. Will say the Google photos free version does compress files but only so Google can save storage space.. If you download files they return to full resolution files on download. 🙂
So cool. And the only problem is crappy audio! Now, for the audio lesson...
It takes a while but when you are scanning a photo album, i scan the entire page. I have found faded out writing on the photo pages upon review with a scanner and high resolution screen. Of course I also scan the photos individually.
That's a great idea!
I’ve just started taking a digital photo (iPhone) of album pages & save each set of pages separately in Photos on my Mac, with original album & digital ‘album’ labelled with same ID number with approximate date range (eg Album #4; 1914-1945). Didn’t want to risk cracking spine of old albums; and my scanner plate is too small to take album page sizes. It’s already helping me match up people whose photos have been put in different albums despite being taken around the same time. And it will help make sure I put photo prints back in the right place after taking them out to scan them! Long, slow job, but worth the effort.
The '4000 px on the long side' mentioned by the archivist must have some specific purpose, like enlarging FROM the original dimensions. IF you are scanning for the purpose of the highest quality for reproducing the source/original photo at the original dimensions, the PPI is the exact same quality for any size. (300 ppi is the acceptable standard MINIMUM). Perhaps that archivist was referring to a specific photo dimension for 4000px.
Wow this covered everything about preserving memories... I planned to do this with my DSLR shooting raw and using the window and a reflector. Thanks
Very well presented. I have gotten all my VHS on DVDs, have gotten my 8mm (professionally done) digitized and am getting ready to digitize a mass of photos. I expect to watch this video again. My great fear is doing a bunch of slides. Thanks for the video.
Instablaster
Thank you, great info. So helpful.
I'm wondering what the best way to reduce grain and do dust removal is: using scanner software settings when scanning, or when post-processing tifs in say Photoshop?
I always do mine in Photoshop after because I'm a control freak ;-) but if you have a lot to do, give your scanner settings a try and see how you like the results. Just don't get rid of the originals until you inspect all the scans. I once had a scanner with a dust removal tool that worked pretty well 90% of the time. On the other 10% it would obliterate people's eyeballs, reading them as giant dust spots.
@@picturesandstories1 Thank you so much for sharing all this useful information. I learned a lot about resolutions to use from these videos.
It seems like the bright scanner light tends to amplify light surface scratches and abrasions on high gloss paper prints which aren't visible to naked eye without that intense glare. I've been scanning old polaroids and the scans look much more beat up than they do in person. I can fix in Lightroom. Scanner settings for dust removal only seem to apply to jpg, not tif.
Great video! Thank you 😊
Dear Alison, at 34:35, you say, “With LQ JPEG, you’ll get LESS THAN 1MB.”
In case you want to correct it, the slide shows GREATER THAN 1MB.
Thanks!!
After scanning all the old family photos as tiffs, should I make copies as tiffs to share on flash drives with family members? Or should I share them as jpegs?
If you have enough space on a flash drive, then you could just copy your tiffs. But if space is limited, making jpeg copies would be fine. Because you still have your tiffs safely backed up as your "digital negatives."
Liked the video! You said not to use pdf for photos or important documents which I don't. But I do pdfs for newspaper articles because I think they zoom very well and are very clear. I usually create the first page as just the clipping and the second page as the full newspaper page. And for letters, vital records, and of course photos, I used TIFF or JPEG.
This was great!
Thank you!
I just subscribed 😘.
Any recommendations for video storage? Should I use .AVI, .MOV, MP4, MPEG, etc.?
MP4 is the most common file type used now.
Be sure you edit before compressing to MP4! Once compressed, it's curtains for editing just like .JPEG photos.
@@MrKen-wy5dk What’s best software for editing videos, please? I use iPhone to take & Mac Photos to store.
How can I get (buy) a copy of the ebook?
Oops, asked too soon. Thanks for the website info later in the video
You must watch this!