Top 8 principles when scanning images, slides and negatives
To digitize your images as quickly and sefely as possible here are 8 key factors to consider:
- Cleanliness
- It is better never to scan the dust and dirt than to take it away later in the computer.
- Never touch the surface of your originals.
- Wear lint-free cotton gloves when handling originals.
- Take away dust by blowing clean air over the surface. You can buy clean air in a spray can.
- Don’t do work twice
- Arrange the scanning so that you will not need to scan images again.
- This minimizes handling and searching. Images are much easier to handle in the computer.
- Scan at the highest resolution you will need at once. You can always make resolution worse, but never better. Hard disk space is cheap nowadays.
- Manage risks
- Scanning now vs later meaning taht the image may deteriorate.
- Sending images away for scanning means a potential risk of loss. But you will get them scanned quickly
- Sending images to low cost countries for scanning reduces cost but may also increase the risk.
- On the other hand there have been fires in US based scnning companies as well.
- You should also consider how unique the images are. Grandmothers old family pictures may be impossible to replace while your annual Florida trip 18 years back may be quite like the one 19 years ago.
- You may want to keep contol over some scanning while you could send away some.
- You must make your own decision.
- Keep backups
- Once you scanned your images keep a backup
- Once you scanned your images keep a backup
- Once you scanned your images keep a backup
- Preferably somewhere away from your home. At work. Swap backups with friends or relatives. Backup online.
- Manage your time
- Do you have more time or more money?
- How many images do you have to scan, hundreds, thousands?
- Set your own priorities on how much time and money you can spend on the project.
- Keep order
- Keep you images organized in the computer.
- Tag them, or consider using an image handling software.
- Keep quality high
- If possible scan in an uncompressed format.
- That way you avoid quality loss if you process the image in photoshop.
- Use the best method for each task
- You may want to scan a limited number of old family pictures by yourself, send less valuable negatives away for scanning locally, and outsource the digital color correction and cleaning to India. Or any other combination that fits your needs.