Uncover the Past: Your Complete Guide to Digitizing & Preserving Old Photographs

How to Scan and Store Your Old Printed Photos

Ollie Mattison

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

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Step 1: Choose the way to go about digitizing your printed collection of Stills

1. For the highest quality: Use a Scanner

To enjoy a dust free collection, it is good to create your own scanning station. In order to obtain the best results, remove any dust or dirt from your prints using a specially designed microfiber cloth or you can prefer to use an alcohol based cleaning wipe. You have to clean both scanner as well as photos for better details. Note that scanner is a highly sensitive device so it can immediately process the presence of even a small dust particle on your image. The best tips for high quality scan creation are:

• It is goof to scan multiple stills at a time and you can crop them later.
• It is good to work with a resolution of a least 300 dots/inch and you can go ahead with 600 dpi selection for large enlargements.
• Editing options can further provide finer results.

2. Use your Phone to Scan Photos

Second recommendation is to do photo scan apps on iOS and Android devices. For this, you may need a high resolution camera from big brands like Galaxy 7, Pixel or iPhone 7 etc. Most of these applications are able to process only one photo at a time and then few fancy computing techniques can be applied ahead to improve the quality. If you want to scan your photos using Phone scan applications then follow these steps:

• Prefer to dust your phone with a microfiber cloth or you can try alcohol based cleaning techniques.
• Place your pictures in a well lightened area so that shadows can be avoided and natural light can maintain desirable impact.

3. Use a Macro lens for Film

As per few professionals this task can be done at home by every user if they have a DSLR camera that is outfitted with macro lens. What you have to do is: start taking multiple photos with your device focusing on multiple directions. Finally you have to combine them to a single platform using digital film technology.

It is well understood that very few users will be able to implement this option at home due to scarcity of resources so this tip is just mentioned to give an idea to those who can implement. But the best thing to know is that, currently most of the Android and iOS developers are offering duplicate options for this process but they are capable enough to maintain high quality results.

4. Let someone else Scan your Photos

If you don’t want to take all this responsibility with your hectic schedules then the best idea is to let professionals handle your task. You can easily find so many professionals serving in this photo scanning field and they offer services at limited price range that everyone can pay easily.

Step 2: Selection of Scanner

1. Best quality

Epson Perfection V850 Pro:

The V850 Pro from Epson can retrieve professional scanning quality for all images and it is commonly used for photographic prints. The positive or negative film developments are also carried on this Epson device and they can have maximum dimensions up to 8 to 10”. You will be glad to know that this tool is equipped with a color calibration software tool that can offer you perfect quality over every scan. This scanner is currently available with price tag of $949.99 only and this is best portable option for your needs. But the sad truth is that most of beginners find its calibration software little complicated to use.

Epson Perfection V800 Photo Scanner:

V800 Photo Scanner is capable enough to deliver high quality scans for all your photographic prints. It can develop films with maximum dimensions of 8 to 10 inches. Scan modes can be adjusted for full control and full auto settings to deliver customized results. The downside of this device is that it is not equipped with any photo editor application other it could provide much improved result with its quality booster filters. This device is available with a price tag of $739.99.

Canon CanoScan LiDE220 Photo and Document Scanner:

Those who want to scan professional quality photographic prints or often need to process few short text documents are advised to invest on LiDE220. You will be impressive to see its performance for colour enhancement and color restoration based scans and the auto dust removal features are additional advantage. All the scans developed by this document scanner are saved in form of editable text files or PDF versions. This is a budget friendly option for you all with a price tag of $89.99 only. You can expect higher resolution with all scans and it can auto improve the faded portions of images.

Epson Perfection V550 Photo Color Scanner:

The V550 Photo scanned for Epson is currently gaining more and more popularity among users in market due to its high quality scan offerings for films as well as photos. The best part is that it can directly organize scans from cloud storage or keeps track over Facebook as per user demands. You will definitely love to scan slides on this tool, it can provide impressive results for negatives and medium format films are also a big advantage. The only trouble professionals will find with this scanner is the missing photo editor software. Note that reviews say that this tool is not ideal for document scanning needs. It is well price with a tag of $165.97.

2. Best Portable

Visible RoadWarrior 4D Duplex Color Scanner for PC and Mac:

Here is a compact, powerful and portable choice for all Mac and PC users. This scanner can easily organize, share and scan your collection while ensuring high quality output for each scan. This scanner is ideal for processing magazine articles, business cards, receipts, newspaper clippings and photographs. All the scan results are updated with PDF file extensions and they are always available with rich quality. This 4D scanner comes with advanced document organizer that ensures proper management of all documents. As, this scanner is designed with advanced Visioneer driver technology that ensures instant scanning to all documents while maintaining higher visual quality for every scan. Users can even expect perfect scans from a collection of imperfect originals. Its robust design makes it more suitable for your needs on the go.

Avision IS15+ Portable Scanner for Photos:

There are so many impressive features hidden inside your Avision scanner. Here we are going to discuss a few:

• It offers build in image processing with high quality output generation abilities.
• Featured with auto crop and advanced deskew like functions.
• It allows scanned images to get processed over hardware with ease; every still is saved with JPG file extension.
• It offers portable solution for your scanning needs.
• You can easily connect USB flash drive or a memory card to your device. It provides more convenience to users for processing their media collections.
• It can work up to 300dpi resolution level.
• This Avision scanner is designed to process business cards, photos, receipts and other small memos with ease using 5x7 size selection.
• You will definitely love its ability to process images faster as it can generate scanned results for a 300dpi image within 10 seconds.

Step 3: Choose a way to store your Photos

If you are planning to store digital photos then the best recommendation is to maintain their multiple copies at different locations. You can easily find so many options to store stills using hardware and software based storage techniques. Get a SD card with higher storage capacity, try some USB thumb drives, Blu-Ray discs are also popular these days, DVDs are a great choice, network attached storage boxes are also recommended by few professionals whereas the most preferred choice is online or cloud based storage service. The selection of storage media completely depends upon what kind of photos you are going to store and how often you want to access them. Online media is best option for frequent access to all stored data.

Most of the users prefer to work with hard drives; they can be easily connected to PC via USB ports and can store large data files with ease. They are fast enough and affordable choice for beginners too. You can easily find 2TB, 3TB or 5TB storage devices at reasonable price range; the selection depends upon how much data you are going to save. In case of online storage options, you can check few photo storage sites or save your content to Google drive or Dropbox like options. These advanced solutions are more reliable and they provide easy access to all your memories from anywhere at any time. You will be glad to know that these cloud based systems are designed to offer advanced security features so whatever you upload to these platforms, you are able to control its privacy as per your needs

Ollie Mattison

Ollie Mattison is a writer and a lover of all things video.

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