Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Scanning Old Photos and Books

By Catie Blatt


If you figure out how to scan old photos & books for preservation you can preserve these things around for countless years. They can save on the wear and tear and harm from handling and keep them from being destroyed. It can also be used to make the information much easier to get to since you can have it electronically.

By doing this, you create a searchable database that can be used to store and look up the information that you want, and it will work equally well for both types. It makes it perfect for genealogy research to put faces to names or just to save the old and out of print books from being damaged by wear and tear of use.

There are different scanners that can be used. The flatbed is the one most people will have, and this is like a small photocopier where the items are placed in it and then a lid closed. The average area for scanning is about the size of a sheet of paper, but it may break the spine if you are not careful. Photo scanners can also be used, and whole any type of scanner can do the photographs, this has the added benefit of being able to scan in negatives and slides as well as clean up older photographs with the included software.

A sheet feed allows one sheet at a time to be added into it, but it is considerably smaller than a flatbed. The portable one is best for books that you do not want to be damaged, since this will roll down the page instead of having to place the book open on the surface, but the photo quality is not all that good. Take what you are doing into consideration and what you are saving when choosing the scanner that will work the best for you.

Once the image has been scanned, you will save it in a location that you want in either a JPEG or BMP extension. This is the easiest and most common way of saving the images, and from there they can be uploaded to the internet, added to a blog or burned to a disk

Once you have the images, don't forget to protect the originals either. Since you are dong this to keep the items in good shape, be sure to store them where they ill not suffer further damage. This way if the electronic ones become lost or corrupted, you can re-add them electronically as you need to and the originals are in good enough shape to be able to do this.

Make sure that you follow all the copyright laws, and only share those that you legally can or have no rights attached to them. Complying with these laws will save you a lot of legal trouble and still give you the ability to preserve these old items.

Discovering how to scan old photos & books will give them an extended life. They can preserve your history and allow you an invaluable resource at the touch of a button. Protecting these items can save them from being destroyed or lost.




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