Scanning old pictures for the best quality

[vintagesnaps]

I'd read someplace (don't remember where) that it was possible to get a decent scan from a 4x6 so I started trying that; I usually scan at the highest res setting on my home printer/scanner and I get pretty good results - but it depends on the quality of the original photo. I find that the scan isn't always quite as sharp or as good in quality but it the original is sharp the copy is good, if the original isn't great the copy isn't the best. I've sometimes done some PP, maybe auto sharpening but it doesn't necessarily make much difference.

I scan usually 4 photos at a time at 600 dpi and save as TIFFs. I've also scanned some of my 8x10 B&W darkroom prints, then have printed them out as inkjet prints, and again if the original is good I can get a good copy (I can't often tell them apart except for the different paper and less gloss).

I too make sure I dust the scanner before I scan photos. It's taking time although I'm just pulling select photos, but 5 photo albums doesn't sound too bad - I have way more than that to go thru! I may follow Sharon's lead, she's scanning while she's watching football, maybe I'll scan while I'm watching hockey this winter (since in the nice summer weather I'm not getting much scanning done!).

 

[Gavjenks]

300dpi is fine if you don't want to make any enlargements to the photo. If you want to enlarge it at all scan at a higher dpi.

Question--for Light Guru or anyone else who knows: I'd always heard that when scanning a paper photo that is 8x10 or smaller, there is not usually any point in scanning at a higher resolution than 300 dpi, because the chances are the photo was printed at a resolution that would give you any greater detail with a higher-quality scan. Is that not correct?

They didn't have laser or inkjets in the 1930's. He said a lot of his prints are very old, and are therefore probably legitimate, developed prints from photo paper and an enlarger, which would have the same absolute resolution as the original film on each side. Which is going to be significantly higher than 300 dpi if the print is 4x5, for instance, and enlarged from a 35mm piece of film (film has roughly 4000-5000 dpi or so, and 35mm --> 122mm enlargment makes the print potentially have up to about 1500 dpi of information on it. The paper texture and degradation and the original skill of the photographer / their lens quality could all reduce this, but we here on the forum don't know any of this information based on what he has told us). but if you DO want to print it larger later, you will want more DPI, because the print probably has more information and you will need it when you enlarge. So go for 600 or 1200.



@OP,

As for format, pretty much any format is fine. Jpeg (lightly compressed or non-compressed), PNG (possibly 24 bit PNG if your scanner has much more than 8 bits of color depth), TIFF, whatever. If your scanner prefers one format natively, then it'd probably be easiest to just use that.

And there are lots of methods for digitizing stuff. Taking a picture of a photo or a negative is a legit option if you have a DSLR. My camera resolves up to about 4000 x 5000 pixels, so for a 4x5 print (or large format negative) that ends up being about 1000 dpi. Potentially better than many cheap scanners and easier to do by far. If it's a negative, just a camera on a tripod looking down on a sheet of glass suspended above a softbox with a remote flash. Negative gets evenly lit from below wherever it is transparent. Then invert in photoshop and you have yourself a 1000 dpi "scan" essentially.

Or a scanner can be used on either a negative (invert in photoshop again) or a print. Scanners can be bought for just a couple hundred dollars that have resolution sufficient to get almost all available data from a film negative (4500 dpi or so). For an enlarged print, you may only need 600-1200 dpi or even less potentially to get all the information out of it and can get away with a cheaper flatbed scanner. Since it has been enlarged, the data is more spread out than on a negative and the scanner doesn't have to be as hardcore. Or if you don't plan on printing at larger sized than the print was originally, then 300 dpi is fine no matter what, because that's what most printers will do, and is good enough to the eye from inches away.

 

[Light Guru]

I know that the OP does not have the negatives.

With negatives you can actually get better results by photographing them.
Why You Should Digitize Your Film Using a Camera Instead of a Scanner

I would actually disagree about it being better to photograph prints. It takes a really good lighting setup to get perfectly even light to be able to photograph prints will with good quality and consistency.

 

[Gavjenks]

^ Stitching together multiple photos to make a high res panorama sounds like a major pain. But very clever idea.

 

[Light Guru]

300dpi is fine if you don't want to make any enlargements to the photo. If you want to enlarge it at all scan at a higher dpi.

Question--for Light Guru or anyone else who knows: I'd always heard that when scanning a paper photo that is 8x10 or smaller, there is not usually any point in scanning at a higher resolution than 300 dpi, because the chances are the photo was printed at a resolution that would give you any greater detail with a higher-quality scan. Is that not correct?

They didn't have laser or inkjets in the 1930's. He said a lot of his prints are very old, and are therefore probably legitimate, developed prints from photo paper and an enlarger, which would have the same absolute resolution as the original film on each side. Which is going to be significantly higher than 300 dpi if the print is 4x5, for instance, and enlarged from a 35mm piece of film (film has roughly 4000-5000 dpi or so, and 35mm --> 122mm enlargment makes the print potentially have up to about 1500 dpi of information on it. The paper texture and degradation and the original skill of the photographer / their lens quality could all reduce this, but we here on the forum don't know any of this information based on what he has told us). but if you DO want to print it larger later, you will want more DPI, because the print probably has more information and you will need it when you enlarge. So go for 600 or 1200.

I think you are defiantly over analyzing things there Gav, but yes 600 or 1200 should be fine for prints.

 

[Light Guru]

^ Stitching together multiple photos to make a high res panorama sounds like a major pain. But very clever idea.

It also works really well with newspaper clippings that are to big to fit on the scan bed. Photoshop does all the stitching work.

 

[Gavjenks]

I assume you've tried it lightguru? Do you just use any generic light box to support the negative? Or are there grades of lightboxes? I'm a bit concerned about the material of the lightbox diffuser having texture to it, that would show up in the "scan." This has been my experience with every white material I have found or tried myself for scanning 4x5 negatives. I have not yet used a legitimate light box intended for dark room usage yet, though.

Currently I use a glass plate suspended a foot or two above a softbox, so that the light is blurry enough from below that no fabric texture has any chance of showing up. This works well for one-shot photos, but would be very difficult to work with when doing panoramas, because the tripod holding the camera above can't pan easily, and I don't really want to lay a whole DSLR + lens on an unsupported sheet of glass...

 

[vintagesnaps]

The OP said he doesn't have a DSLR. I think all he needs to do is scan prints that would most likely be either 3 1/2 x5 or 4x6 unless there are some enlargements since those were standard sizes if they're from 35mm film.

Unless they're old enough to be even smaller sized prints, or were from 120 film - I don't know offhand what size prints were typically made from that but I have vintage photo paper - from the era that 120 was common the paper used was often smaller and various sizes depending on the year.

I wouldn't see any problem scanning prints unless some had deteriorated, and if there were certain photos that someone would want to have restored many photo stores and labs can do that, as does Film Rescue International.

 

[Light Guru]

I assume you've tried it lightguru? Do you just use any generic light box to support the negative? Or are there grades of lightboxes? I'm a bit concerned about the material of the lightbox diffuser having texture to it, that would show up in the "scan." This has been my experience with every white material I have found or tried myself for scanning 4x5 negatives. I have not yet used a legitimate light box intended for dark room usage yet, though.

Currently I use a glass plate suspended a foot or two above a softbox, so that the light is blurry enough from below that no fabric texture has any chance of showing up. This works well for one-shot photos, but would be very difficult to work with when doing panoramas, because the tripod holding the camera above can't pan easily, and I don't really want to lay a whole DSLR + lens on an unsupported sheet of glass...

I'll reply to this via message as it is completely off topic for the thread.

 

[namessuck]

Hello again!

The scanner I will be using is the Epson Perfection 4990 photo - circa 2005. I thought it was newer than that, but I was apparently wrong. Seems like it went for around $500 at the time and has decent reviews.

I don't know much about scanners that's why I thought I would give you guys the info.

Will this be good enough to get the best quality or do I need something newer?

 

[namessuck]

Here's the settings from the scanner these might help.

It was auto set to 'use custom size' and left everything else default besides changing to TIFF.
If this scanner is no good let me know.

If it is, please tell me the correct settings.

I can upload some pictures so you guys can tell me what you think.

I scanned an 8x10 with these settings 'use custom size' and everything else default. TIFF and 1200 dpi. It took over a minute to scan and was 1.04gb in size and 10176x14032 pixels.

 

[namessuck]

Decided to just start scanning. Hope I chose the right settings... I already scanned 65 pictures at 1200dpi. I left everything default, except I let the scanner auto crop the images. Although I did resize the borders a few times because it took maybe a sliver of the picture off.

I also scanned 3-6 photos at a time and that sped up the process a bit.

With the newer photos 90-00s I will do them all at 600 dpi, including the 8x10 which should be good enough.

If anyone would like to add anything though that would be great.

I don't know how to tag these photos after I am done? TIFF has metadata but do I need a program to tag them with?

 

[Gavjenks]

lol, a gigabyte? Wtf?

1200 * 8 inches x 1200 * 10 inches = 115 megapixels.
With any sort of basic compression, you should be able to save that using only about maybe 30 megabytes or so, not a GIGABYTE.

I think you should abandon the TIFF format, and go for either PNG or lossless jpeg or high quality lossy jpeg. Unlike TIFF, those formats will actually all do at least a halfway decent attempt at compression to reasonable sizes.



The ones you've already scanned could easily be converted to any compressed format with no significant losses worth mentioning, if you don't want them all taking up a gigabyte. No need to rescan.

 

[namessuck]

well I was impatient and no one responded. I only had a day to do my scans.

I only had 3 options in the scanner settings - TIFF, PNG, and PDF.

I scanned 65 pictures and the total so far is around 8gb. How does that sound to you?

 

[Gavjenks]

Not great, but a helluva lot better than a gigabyte per photo.

At that rate, your entire collection will be 50 gigabytes, which is probably fine, considering that's all you have to scan and then you're done. *shrug* most people have 50 gigabytes to spare.