Old Pictures usually hold a special place in our hearts. Photographs from decades or even a century ago are fascinating to look at, even if we don’t know who the subjects are or have never been to the photographed locations. Old Pictures can take us back to a different time in history when the architecture, clothing, modes of transportation, and hairstyles are often interesting and sometimes amusing. Today’s digital imaging technology can help you restore and preserve your old Pictures so that you can enjoy them now and also pass them on to others.

As photographs age, there are several problems that occur. Old Pictures fade over time. Sometimes photographs are stored in conditions that damage them. Direct sunlight, humidity, heat, and fluctuating temperatures can all cause Pictures to deteriorate. Even the photo albums that are meant to keep photographs in a safe environment can cause damage to Pictures.

You can scan your old Pictures to a digital format, usually JPEG or TIFF, and then restore them using digital image software. Research the available software and purchase one that is user-friendly with multiple restoration options. You want to be able to get rid of scratches, uneven fading, fill in tears, and fix any other blemishes on your photographs. Your intention might be to simply store your photographs as digital images on your computer, CD, or DVD, but careful restoration allows you to make high quality prints as well.

Make sure your old Pictures are as clean as possible before you scan them. You can wipe them with a clean, dry cloth before placing them on the scanner, but don’t do much more than this. Too much handling, especially for photographs that are already in bad condition, can damage your Pictures even more. Don’t try to fix a tear with tape. Some old Pictures that have been passed around extensively may have small pieces of debris stuck to them. Resist the temptation to scrape off the debris because it might leave a hole or white spot on your photograph. It will be easier to use your image software to cover any small debris.

Once your old Pictures are scanned, you can begin working with the image software to adjust the coloring, even out tones, fill in tears and scratches, and get rid of the “red eye” that is so common in old Pictures. Take your time with each photograph and restore it to the highest quality possible. If you don’t like how your adjustment looks, you can undo it and try again.

A high end scanner and image software are, of course, preferred for restoring old Pictures, but not everyone wants to purchase expensive equipment to do this. Professional quality scanners can run into the thousands of dollars. A great alternative to scanning your old Pictures yourself is to use a professional photography service. These services use state-of-the-art scanning equipment and can work miracles with damaged photographs. You’ll want to find a photography service that will scan your Pictures one by one to ensure each one is restored to the highest quality photograph possible.

Digital photography has arrived, and it is the way of the future. You don’t need an old photographer like me to tell you that.

Forget the traditionalists who insist that film is better. In some ways it definitely is; it is simply not practical in the digital world to continue taking your photos on film. However, that doesn’t mean you should throw your old photos away.

It may come as a shock to some young people, but great photography has existed for many years, done by true artists who relied on camera skills, not computers, to produce their images. Some manipulation was possible in the darkroom by the few who knew how, but most great photography was captured ‘in camera.’

What a shame, then, that so many of these great images are now gathering dust in closets around the world.

Our rush to embrace digital technology was not gradual. Digital cameras made film almost obsolete in just a few short years. With the cameras came computer software, USB cards, online storage and social networking. Almost overnight, everything related to photography involved digital technology. You really could not do anything with a photo unless it was on your computer.

Of course, this is no problem for photos taken now and in the future. Most of us now have digital cameras and are becoming comfortable with software. My concern is, what has happened to all those great photos from the past, taken on film and now out of place in the modern world?

I have been taking photos to sell in my gallery for over twenty years. I appreciate all the benefits of digital photography, but for now I have chosen not to buy a digital camera. I have thousands of photos from my many travels, all taken on colour slides, which I am determined to put to good use.

I just know that when I buy a digital SLR camera and start snapping, all these old slides will be forgotten. They will gather dust, fade, and eventually be good for nothing but throwing away. So my decision to continue working with film is about making sure that doesn’t happen.

These days I am trawling through years of images, picking out the shots that deserve to be seen, and scanning them. As long as they remain on film, they may be out of date; but once converted to digital files they are every bit as good as anything taken on a modern camera. Some people would argue that for quality, they are even better.

Since I started scanning my slides, I have rediscovered a treasure trove of photos from years past. For every photo I have printed and sold, there are ten more photos just as good that have never seen the light of day. Some photos I always knew were there. Others I had forgotten I ever shot. Some of those photos are now on sale and proving more popular than photos I had been selling for all these years.

When you revisit photos after many years, you start to notice things about them that you may not have appreciated before. Sometimes the photo you chose to print first is not the best, although you may have thought so at the time. After admiring one photo of a waterfall for ten years, it is a real eye-opener to remember you also have ten other angles of the same waterfall, taken on the same roll of film but never printed, and each spectacular in its own way.

Scanning your negatives and colour slides does not have to be expensive. You can buy a film scanner for just a few hundred dollars which has the resolution and the software to get the job done. After that, the only thing you have to spend is time.

If scanning them yourself doesn’t appeal, you can pay to have it done professionally. This can cost as little as a few dollars a file, and should include all the colour correction and spot removal you need to make your photos ready for printing. It may be too costly to have all your photos scanned commercially, but you could make a selection of your top 100 to save for posterity.

Whichever way you choose to go about it, I encourage you to revisit your old photos. Don’t allow them to fade and deteriorate in a corner until you get around to throwing them out. Scanning can breathe new life into old memories, and I guarantee you will find some real gems that are worth preserving.

Today’s digital image technology is a great way to store and preserve your photographs. If you have a collection of film photographs, you might want to consider converting these photos to digital images. Here are a few of the advantages you’ll find when you decide to convert photos.

You won’t need to worry about storage space for your photographs. When you convert photos to digital images, you will scan the photographs to CD’s or DVD’s. You’ll want to keep some of your original photographs, especially if they are heirlooms. However, you’ll probably find that you can either give away or toss many of your photographs after you scan them. This will free up some of the closet and drawer space you’re currently using to store your photographs. The CD’s and DVD’s can be easily stored anywhere and will take up minimal space.

You will be able to find photographs you’re looking for. You might be an expert at keeping your photographs in order, but if you’re like most people, you could use some help organizing your photographs. When you covert photos, you can easily group your photographs by any category, such as date, location, family, and friends. If you want to find all your photographs of the family reunion ten years ago, you’ll know exactly which CD’s or DVD’s to check.

Your photographs will be safe. When stored properly, CD’s and DVD’s can last for many, many years. When you convert photos to a digital format, the photographs won’t fade or deteriorate the way film photographs do. You’ll be able to print a perfect photo anytime you want and can even make more enhancements to photographs later on. Of course, anything can happen, so it’s a good idea to have two copies of each of your photo CD’s and DVD’s.

You can share your photographs. Having a great photograph that you wanted to share used to mean finding the negative for the photo and then having reprints made. When you convert photos, you’ll always have the digital image of your photographs. You can email or print your photographs at any time and make special CD’s or DVD’s of photographs for your family and friends.

All your photographs will look great. When you convert photos to a digital format, you’ll be able to enhance the photographs by filling in scratches and tears, adding color to faded pictures, and correcting problems such as “red eye.” You can restore your photographs to their original look and many times make them look even better. Film photographs can really take a beating, and converting them to a digital format can make them look like new again.

Many people convert photos at home with a scanner. If you have a large collection of film photographs you want to convert to digital images, be sure to buy a scanner that can scan several slides or negatives at one time.

To live your dreams of digitizing your family history project, you will need to unpack all your negatives, 35mm slides, family scans or the digital photographs that have been stacked up in your attic. Preservation of history, rather addressing it as preservation of family history, is swiftly turning into a very popular pursuit for all the kinfolks and the genetic descenders. But scanning of negatives, photographic slides and transparencies for large volumes for preservation of history is very time consuming and a costly affair. That is, it USED to be a costly affair, until the advent of the modern scanners for slides and negatives.

Today’s technology makes it easier than ever to convert negatives to a digital format. Scanning services will take your negatives, quickly scan them using high-resolution scanning equipment, and burn the resulting image files onto a CD that you can use to archive your memories. If you have a pile of negatives that you want to have scanned, make sure you prepare them properly for the process.

Handle Negatives Carefully

When you convert negatives to a digital file, any damage on the negative will be included on the scanned image. This happens because the scanner scans the image exactly as it is. As you prepare your negatives to send them to the scanning company, do not touch their surfaces. Handle negative by the edges only, because fingerprints are almost impossible to remove from a negative. If you are going to be handling several negative strips, you may want to purchase a pair of negative handling cotton gloves.

Organizing Negatives

If you have hundreds of negatives that you will be scanning, organize them before you send them to the scanning service. Some companies can compile the images into a DVD format with captions and music, but this will make no sense if you have not first grouped them according to the event. Consider organizing them in a chronological order so that the CD or DVD is organized as well. This will make it easier to find the images you want when you have your digital copy.

Cleaning Negatives

Use a cotton, lint free cloth or your negative handling gloves to gently dust off your negatives. Do not rub them roughly, however, because this can add scratches. Your goal is to gently remove any dust without damaging the image. If you have ever stapled the negatives to something, remove the staple carefully. Some developers glue paper or plastic backing to negatives when they package the finished prints. If your negatives have this, remove it. Most scanning companies do not mind receiving negatives that are in a plastic sleeve, however, and this can protect them during shipment.

Packaging Negatives

Your particular scanning company should have guidelines for packaging your negatives. If they do not, consider wrapping them in a zip-top plastic bag. This will keep them secure during transport. Mail them in a bubble or cardboard mailer to avoid any damage from envelopes being bent during transport. Consider purchasing insurance on the package. While it will not replace the lost memories if a shipping problem arises, you will be reimbursed. You may also want to purchase a tracking service if it is available so that you can keep track of your negatives while they are on route to the negative scanning company.

The right preparation will help the process to go smoothly. When you convert negatives to a digital format, you are left with a photo CD that can be stored just about anywhere and is resistant to damage. You will also get your negatives back, so you will not lose your originals in the process. In this way, you can have the best of both worlds, both digital and film photography.

If you’re like most people, you have a huge collection of photographs. Photographs are something we all tend to accumulate: we take our own pictures, friends and family give us pictures, and pictures are passed down through the generations. Sometimes these photographs are stored in photo albums, boxes, or drawers. Few storage areas are actually good for photographs, and many of our prized shots fade over time and get torn or bent.

Photo scanning is a great way to preserve your photographs. You will be able to organize all your photographs for viewing and can share them with others. The digital images of your photographs will be stored on CD’s or DVD’s where you can access them at any time. You will be able to print and email as many photographs as you want and can use them for creative projects, such as special DVD’s for anniversaries or birthdays.

Flatbed scanners are the most common scanners used for home photo scanning. Many times the scanning equipment also serves as a copier and a fax machine. Photo scanning on a flatbed scanner is similar to making a copy. You place the photograph face down on the glass plate, close the lid, and then push the button for the scan preview. Make sure both the photograph and the scanner’s glass plate are clean before you begin to scan. Even images of tiny debris and dust will be visible on your digital images. Be particularly careful with heirloom photographs. These are usually fragile, and rough cleaning methods may tear them. It’s also a good idea to wear white cotton gloves while you’re scanning your photos to keep from transferring oils from your hands to the glass plate or photographs.

You will be able to see a preview screen of your photograph before you actually scan it. You’ll be able to tell if you need to adjust the placement of the photograph or if there is dust, hair, or other debris on the photograph or glass plate. Use the color photo setting even if your photograph is black and white. This will give you more options when you’re making the final adjustments to the digital image. The DPI (dots per inch) setting you should use for photo scanning is 300DPI, and settings of up to 600DPI are usually recommended. A higher DPI makes it easier to restore your photographs to high quality images. After you have scanned your photograph, you can use the graphics software program to make adjustments to the coloring and lighting for an enhanced digital image.

Negative scanning is a term that is used to refer to the scanning of both photo negatives, most typically those on 35mm film, and also, of film slides. Scanning negatives or film produces a more quality print at a higher resolution, since scanning a print would produce a lower quality, second generation copy of the image.

Think of the difference in quality between the music on a CD purchased at a store and the music on a tape made from that same CD, and it is easy to see why scanning negatives and film slides is the preferred method of the professionals when it comes to obtaining prints from these mediums.

Make sure to always organize your negatives by group, and use your scanner’s batch mode to scan each negative by category both before and after scanning. You can still name each scan individually if you want to, but the batch scan feature eliminates the absolute necessity of this step.

You should also take care to make sure to use a scanner with Kodak’s Digital ICE photo restoring software. You can also use a special film cleaner and compressed air for especially stubborn particulate matter.

Before you start scanning, you should adjust your settings to 3000 DPI. In terms of file formats, we recommend that professional photographers use the TIFF format, and that novices use JPEG, due to the large file sizes of the TIFF format.

You should also compare the difference in negative resolution with Kodak ICE and without, and never, ever, crop your negatives until you have scanned the entire image in.

What Are Some of The Benefits Of Negative Scanning?

First of all, whether we want to admit it or not, most of us have at least one or two dusty boxes sitting in our garage, attic, or basement full of old negatives and slides, and unorganized photos. In short, a treasure trove of memories that no one will ever see. This is where the pros at photo restoration comes into play.

Negative scanning on your own used to be tricky but nowadays the slide negative scanner ranges on sale do a great job of scanning into your own home computer ready for printing, burning to CD or DVD or just watching as slide shows.