How to Properly Scan Photos With Your Home Scanner

How to Properly Scan Photos With Your Home Scanner and Smart Phone 

This might seem as something easy, but I have been doing Professional Photography for almost 20 years and majority of my people do not know how to scan a photo for the proper use. Either the resolution is too low (most common mistake) or the resolution is too high. Which results in a big file size that will be harder for a CPU to manage and won’t be able to be emailed. Due to file size constraints. Most emails have a 20MB file size limit.

First Step

The first thing you want to do is decide what is the reason for this scan? Is it for sharing? For archiving reasons? To take to lab for printing or photo restoration? For a DVD slideshow?

Lets begin…

First we would need to clean off the scanners glass. Before starting I use the Kodak Brillianize Detailer Cleaning Wipe (8266488), its a 2 step cleaning process. The first step is a wet paper cloth to wipe down the scanner glass, removing static charge and particles on the surface. The second step is to use the dry paper cloth, thats to dry off the scanners glass and its also lint free.

Next…..

Clean off any dirt or particles on the surface of the photograph. People waste lots of time not cleaning the image first before scanning. They think they can just use an editing tool to remove any dust on the photo. Wiping dust off a photograph is always faster then doing editing on Photoshop later on. This will save you lots of time.

What Resolution to Scan for Social Media, sharing photos with family and friends and Making a Print the Same Size?

For social media, Slideshows, sharing photos with family and friends and making a copy of the print the same size I would not go higher then 300dpi. 300dpi is sufficient enough for an image not to look blurry on a computer monitor and on a smartphone. Plus your eyes can’t distinguish any pixels with more then 300dpi. For printing, most commercial printers can’t even print passed 300dpi. We have a commercial printer and it prints at 300dpi and let me tell you the prints come out beautiful. For slideshows you don’t need no more than 300dpi. Most DVD slideshow’s resolution is 720×480. A standard 4×6 print scanned at 300dpi has a resolution of 1800×1200, far more then what is needed for a DVD slideshow. That resolution will still be sufficient if you were making a High Definition Slideshow. A HD slideshow resolution is 1920×1080, so the 4×6 at 300dpi is still sufficient for a HD slideshow.

For Making Prints Larger then its Actual Size?

For making prints larger then its actual size it will all depend on originals actual size and the size you want to achieve. Lets say you have a “2×3” photo, but you want to print it out as a “8×12” photo. A 2×3 photo at 300dpi will give you a resolution of 600×900 pixels and 8×12 at 300 dpi will give you a resolution of 2400×3600. Now because we want to print the 2×3 as an 8×12 size print we need to reach pixel count of 2400×3600 pixels. So we would need to scan the 2×3 at 1200DPI. Scanning the 2×3 at 1200dpi will give us a resolution of 2400×3600. Now that 2×3 is has sufficient resolution to be printed.

Most people ask me if a 2×3 photo will print ok as an 8×12? Yes! Because back before digital, the prints we had made from film which had unbelievable fine grain. The prints were printed on Silver Halide paper. These papers are the best for print longevity. Anytime you print images get them printed on Kodak Silver Halide paper. Images were so detailed even in smaller sizes. I can’t say the same thing about photos nowadays printed on inkjet printers or dye sub.

Photo Scanning for Archiving and Photo Restoration

Any image that needs to be scanned for archiving and photo restoration I recommend 600DPI or higher. You want to capture as much detail as possible, if you decide that you want the photograph to be restored by a Pro Lab or if this is something that you will be performing yourself. Sometimes when I restore an image I zoom in photoshop and have to restore an image pixel by pixel. The more pixels to work with the the better. Old photographs, lets say late 1800s and early 1900s, for archiving reason I scan at 600dpi or higher. I know the photograph itself is deteriorating, I want to capture as much detail as possible to preserve this photograph for future generations.

Smart Phone Scanning

Now with your smart phone you can scan an image by just taking a picture of another picture. If you can get the photograph scanned by a professional lab or have a decent scanner at home yourself I DO NOT recommend trying to use your smart phone for preserving or capturing photos. Smart Phone scans or good for sharing an image on social media for lets say Throw Back Thursday but for archiving reason you just can’t get a decent scan with the smartphone. If you do decide to use your smartphone I’d recommend shooting the image outside in bright sunlight. Make sure that you are perfecting lined up above the photo before you capture the image. If you capture images at an angle you will get distortion. The head might appear bigger or the persons hands might seen like the hands of a giant. The reason for this is that the photograph needs to be away from the smartphones camera from top to bottom. If the photograph is laying flat on the ground but you’re holding the camera at a 45 degree angle then you would see some distortion on the image.

Now if you have tons of Photos to scan I would recommend using a Pro Lab to scan your photos. I had close to 10k photos of mine scanned by www.photo60studio.com. They are offering photo scanning services as low as $69.95 for 500 photos at 300dpi. You can also get 500 of your photos scanned at 600dpi for $129.95. The people there have great customer service and great turn-around time for getting photos scanned.