Photo Scanning Tips

Most of us have old family photos that we would like to share - either in a book or movie maker project, or in online photo albums or facebook - or just to have additional copies made.. So scanning allows us to "convert" those photo to digital and save them on our computers.. Here are a few tips when you are scanning photos and documents...

1) Be sure to remove any dirt, lint, or smudges from what you are scanning with a soft brush or lint-free photowipe. I don’t recommend “Canned air” especially for older photos that could be damaged…

2) Make sure your scanner glass is clean of all lint, fingerprints, smudges and particles-use a camera lens wipe, or if you use a glass cleaner, never spray it on the glass surface; always spray it on a lint free cloth and then wipe the glass.

3) Have clean hands, so you don’t leave skin oil on your photos or scanner glass. Many professionals wear white cotton gloves (available from photo stores and hardware stores) when they handle photos...

4) Choose the type of scan-it’s always best to scan in color, even all those old black and whites, so you have more manipulation options when you use your photo editing software, such as Picasa, Photoshop etc.

5) For the best scan resolution (quality), rule of thumb is a minimum of 300dpi (Dots Per Inch) for decent quality for enhancement and restoration techniques and 600dpi or greater if you plan to store these on CD or DVD.

6) Only scan “1” photo or document at a time. If you put multiple photos – you will have 1 scanned item with multiple photos or documents in it…

7) Once you scan your item, before you "save it" be sure the “sizing handles” are around just the actual photo and not the entire scan plate. And don’t do cropping here – save the actual photo, and then you can crop and enhance with your photo editing software.

8) Saving what you've scanned - Some scanners allow you to choose the folder where you want to name and save the scanned photo – others will automatically save it in the “My Scan Folder” and name it with a numbering sequence (the folder will have the date you did the scanning, and each scanned item will have sequential numbers, ie Scan 0001, Scan 0002, Scan 0003 – and the folder name might be: 2011-3.7 (9) – the number in parenthesis indicates the number of scans you did that day.

9) Once you are done scanning – if your scanned items are in the “My Scan” Folder, be sure to “rename” your scanned items instead of leaving them with the scan numbers – otherwise if you combine several days of scanning into one folder – multiple items would then have the same numbers which is unacceptable and you could lose photos…

It's wonderful to scan as many of our old photos and documents as possible, so that they are identified and in a format for "the future" versus sitting in boxes or closet drawers that may then be someday thrown away because no one knows who or what they are ...

Yes, it's time consuming, but so worth the effort...Enjoy

Facebook - Privacy for Photo Albums

A question raised quite often about FACEBOOK is how to set privacy settings for photos and photo albums that you put on your FACEBOOK account.. Again remember that in your Account Tab, there is a help button to answer this and many other questions about using FACEBOOK…

HOW TO EDIT THE PRIVACY SETTINGS FOR YOUR PHOTO ALBUMS in FACEBOOK? It’s important to edit the privacy settings for your photo albums, especially when there are photos of children-changing the settings is easy:

1. Go to the photo album.
2. Select the "Edit Album Info" button in the lower left side of the screen.
3. On the "Edit Info" tab, select the "Privacy" drop-down menu to customize the privacy settings for your album.
4. Your choices will be: Everyone; Friends of Friends; Friends only and Customize
5. Customize option allows you to be very specific: naming those you want to see the album or even block certain people from seeing the album or choosing that only you can see the photo

Remember-only the owner of an album can adjust the album privacy. This may affect the visibility of photos you are tagged in when your friends look at them. Also, if you share a high resolution photo or album with someone, that user will be able to download those photos.

You can also access privacy settings for photo albums by doing the following:

1. Click on the "Account" menu and select "Privacy Settings" from the drop down menu.
2. Click "Customize settings."
3. Choose "Edit album privacy for existing photos." Alternatively, you can click the "Album Privacy" link on the "Photos" tab of your profile next to your albums.