Scanning Tips brought to you by Photo FX Plus

1. It is advisable to wear clean cotton gloves to avoid getting skin oils on the equipment or photo. You should also have some photo wipes to clean the picture and any camera lens cleaner product will work to clean the glass on your scanner. You may use a household glass cleaner such as Windex to clean the scanner glass, however avoid spraying the cleaner directly on the glass. Lightly spray the cleaner on a clean lint-free cloth and then use the cloth to wipe the glass clean. Remember that any imperfections showing up on the scan will need to be removed and the less editing performed on a photo, the more original the completed picture will appear.
2. Thoroughly clean your scanner glass and underside of the cover as well. Visually inspect both areas for any foreign matter and check the scanner glass for streaks or smudges. Check around the edges of the glass for any foreign matter and make sure that none of the cleaner remains on or along the sides of the glass. It would be terrible if you retrieved your family heirloom from the scanner bed only to find a long wet spot along the side of it!
3. Clean your photo! Visually inspect the photo for smudges, dust, and foreign particles. Smudges and any surface contaminates should be removed with a photo wipe available at photo stores. You may use "Canned Air" however it is a good idea to spray away from the photograph in order to clear the spray nozzle before directing the spray at the photo. Begin spraying at a distance and move closer with care. It is not advisable to use "Canned Air" on photographs that are creased, torn, or older photographs that have lost their "firmness". You may damage the photo even more.
4. Place your photo in your scanner. Do not push the photo completely against the sides. When you close the cover the photo may push down to the glass forcing the edges even more against the sides. This could result in a partial uplifting of the photo and effect the quality of the scan. It may also cause the photo to slide across the glass in the opposite direction causing a smudge. A very old photo that has lost its firmness may be damaged. If your photo is in more than one piece, please do not try to tape it together. Please do not try to push the pieces together on the scanner. When editing torn photographs in a photo editing program it is much easier to put pieces together then to try and separate and then realign a misaligned piece. Place the pieces in the correct position while leaving a small space between them. If your photo is already taped together than you should leave it like it is. Trying to remove the tape can damage the picture. To view an example of a properly scanned torn photograph Click Here.
5. On your scanner settings, under type of photo, select "Color Photo" regardless of what type of photo the original is. With regard to Grayscale pictures (black and white), this selection will provide more of a picture to work with and any photo can always be changed to grayscale. Your scanner may have an option called color depth (also called bit depth or pixel depth). Color depth is the amount of color information available for each "pixel" (picture element) in the photograph. If your scanner has the color depth option, you may see such settings available as 32 bit (CMYK), 24 bit (RGB), 8 bit (Grayscale), and Black and White (documents). Naturally we would like as much information per pixel as we can get however file sizes increase as bit depth increases. Larger file sizes can cause your computer problems and even more problems trying to upload on a web site. If your scanner has the color depth option, 24 bits is the preferred color bit depth. This would translate to a 24-bit RGB bit depth (8 bits x 3 channels). If your scanner does not have this option then do not be concerned, just select "Color Photo"
6. On your scanner settings, under resolution, please select either 300 ppi (pixels per inch) or any resolution above 300 except 600. A tried and true rule of thumb is to scan at a higher resolution then desired, then resample the image down to the resolution needed as long as the down sampled resolution is not one half the original resolution. This usually provides "better pixels" however, once again high resolution images can produce large files and as such can cause problems on your computer if your computer does not have the resources to handle them. If this is the case, then please try to scan at a minimum of 300 ppi. If you already have the picture on your computer at less then requested color depth and resolution, or have no idea what the color depth or resolution is, and rescanning is not an option, then send it as is. Photos at less than 300 ppi or a color depth of 24 bits can still be edited with surprising results.
7. Your scanner should have a preview button. This will allow you to check alignment which should be as close as possible, although pictures can be straightened in a photo editing program, some detail is lost due to the "re-sampling" process. Look for any foreign matter between the photo and glass. Make certain the entire photo is showing. If your scanner does not automatically crop the empty part of the screen to scan only your photo then do so yourself. Make certain that all you are scanning is the complete photo itself. You should not try to edit your picture at this point. Please make sure that all auto sharpening, color correction, and any filters are turned off on your scanner before you scan the photo. Any editing such as cropping out a portion of the photo, brightness, or contrast can be performed after the scan in a photo editing program with much better results. Do make sure that the entire photo will be scanned.
8. Scan your photo at the size you would like your finished photo to be. If your photo is 5 x 7 and you would like an 8 x 10, then set the output size on your scanner to 8 x 10. The original size of a photo can be changed, however the pixels in a photograph do much better and the finished photo looks a lot better if the size is left as scanned. Either way remember that down-sizing an image is not nearly as destructive as enlargement can be.
9. Now the really hard part, hit the scan button!
10. Save your photo as either TIFF (preferred) or JPEG. TIFF is the preferred format because it does not compress your file. The downside of TIFF files is the resulting file size. If TIFF format causes your computer problems then JPEG can be used however, do not open and save over the file before uploading. JPEG is a "lossy" format which compresses the file each time the file is saved over. Every compression sheds a little more information and after a while the image appearance will be affected. Although overly compressed photos can be restored to some degree, the results are much better when working on a file which has not been saved over. If you merely close the file without saving over than no compression occurs. A good idea when working with JPEG files (or any image file for that matter) is to save a copy of the original in TIFF format. While working on the original, if you have saved over it, you should get another copy of the saved version and apply all your changes to the new copy. However, if you wish to keep file sizes down on your computer, then remember, an image scanned as a color photo, 24 bits, 300 ppi and saved as JPEG can produce a very nice manageable file for editing, restoring, and printing if it has not been saved over (All of the photos on the "Photo Examples" page were edited in JPEG format, 24bits, 300 ppi).

That's it! Clean your scanner and photo, choose color photo, set resolution and color depth (if available) to a minimum of 300 ppi and 24 bits respectively, set the output size, check the preview, align, adjust the screen crop, then hit the scan button. Save as file format, TIFF (preferred) or JPEG and send it to Photo FX Plus.

If you have any questions or problems scanning or uploading please send us an email  by clicking on the link below. We will be more than happy to respond.

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