Since digital cameras came into the market, most people use digital formats for new photos, and there are people keeping older film camera paper prints, slides and negatives. We will show how to convert them into digital formats.
Paper Prints
Sizes 4X6 and 5X7. If they are kept too long, tend to lose their quality, the paper might turn yellow, bend and colors faded.
Slides
Are similar to negatives but projecting photos on large screen.
Negatives
Are processed film usually 35mm roll which hardly used unless to develop new paper prints.
Want to know how to convert all those old photos from traditional paper and negatives to digital? This is easy to copy and a better way to keep the photos in the computer for long time. For amateurs try simple, easy and cheap methods. Professional photographers will spend time and money on this process scanning and requires different equipment.
Scan paper photos prints on a scanner yourself, is a cheaper way, unless you want to send to a professional scanning service that will scan and mail them back the originals and a DVD with the digital scans. Sometimes, it’s a risk to take, mailing the only hardcopy of your photos.
The Resolution is measured by the number of dots per inch, if you are going to scan it yourself. Usually the scanner can scan at 1200DPI or more. The higher the resolution the slower the scan and bigger photo file size. If the higher resolutions scan is at 300 to 600 DPI, you get better results.
When you buy a scanner check the scanning Speed, which is measured by number of scans per minute and check the speed at the DPI you’re going to use. Speed is important if you are using more than hundreds photos. For better results, scan at the lowest resolution possible, 300-600DPI is good enough.
Photo feeding is not an issue if only small number, but for more photos make sure that the scanner is fast and easy loading. A good scanner will automatically load stacks of photos, feed and scan them for you.
Scanning negatives and slides is harder than scanning paper prints, so a professional scanning service is easier and cheaper. Standard flat scanner will not be good enough; you need a film/slides scanner. Negatives and slides are high resolution sources and require scanning at higher DPI than paper prints. In this cases 2400DPI or higher should be used. So scanning home photo paper prints is good enough but scanning the source negatives is a not needed.
You can see how easy to photo paper prints by yourself rather than using professional scanning service. For a small investment, get an expensive automatic scanner which has all the functions to convert your original quality memories into digital format, for you and your children to enjoy.
Plus you can keep these photos stored safely on DVD hard drive or online where you can never loose them. And you can share your photos with the world faster then you can say cheese!
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