Share Your Original Photo as well as the Cropped Portion

If your original contains an amazing photograph of a family member, of course you are going to get an incredible scan at a high enough resolution to capture that photo and print it any size you desire. However, be certain to take into consideration what other family members will be looking at if you don't share the entire original image with them, as well. Using these images as an example, look what would be missing from the family's story if all you shared was the amazing cropped portrait. Does your collection contain any photos that cause you to wonder what the original looked like?

Disappearing Tape

Take a look at your photographs with tape in various areas. Always scan the entire photo to preserve the original image. Then consider cropping out as much of the tape as possible by moving the scanner's selection tool and scanning the smaller section (with less tape showing) at a high enough resolution to print at the size you desire. Photo editing techniques can lighten the tape or make it a different color to help make it disappear. Don't let that tape keep you from preserving those damaged images. If you have to scan a photo taped to an album, look at the tips on other blog posts regarding scanning from albums.

Photos Stuck to Glass

Sometimes photos get stuck to flat glass, sometimes to domed glass. Depending on the situation, it might require a professional's help in scanning if you are facing an issue with curved glass. However, if the glass (with photo stuck to it) will fit your scanner bed, place a transparency sheet down on the glass bed of your scanner. Then carefully place the glass and photo down over the transparency sheet so you don't scratch your scanner's bed. Scan at correct resolution for print size. Then carefully lift the glass and photo. Most of the time there will be problems with color, tears, cracks, or changes in surface texture. If it's a one-of-a-kind photograph, it's better to try and get a good scan before the image degrades any further. Digital editing can be done at any time. Preserving the original should be your prime motivation to scan as soon as possible.

Scanning Newspaper Articles in Large Scrapbook Albums

Sometimes these larger albums need to be scanned on "large format" scanners with the ability to accommodate up to 11"x17" originals. If you cannot locate one in your area, check with Family History Libraries which may have just such equipment provided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints--and the equipment is free to use. Be sure to go through each page of your album before scanning and make note of which articles or items need to be scanned at a higher resolution than the 300dpi used to capture an image of the entire page. If there are small newspaper clippings you would like to see printed in a family history, for instance, decide how large you will be printing the clipping. Maybe you would like it to be printed three times the original's size so that you can clearly see the writing. In that case, scan it at 3x300dpi or 900dpi (which usually doesn't exist as a setting on scanners). So change the dpi to the next higher number in the scanner's list of choices...usually 1200dpi. Set the cropping tool of the scanner around the little clipping and scan at the higher resolution. That gives you an awesome digital item to use and print as a yellowed version or converted to a black and white copy. If you have ever downloaded a newspaper article from the internet and it's very blurry, there's not much that can be done because it wasn't scanned correctly. Now you know!!! And all your scans will be great for others to read!!!

Scanning Album Pages

Ahhhh, those wonderful old albums! Family members worked so hard to get photos printed and placed in those little black corners (that tasted awful to lick so they would stick). Each page contains photos and/or memorabilia as well as priceless handwritten notes giving us a glimpse into the thoughts and creativity of people intent on preserving moments in time for themselves or others. If you have stewardship over just such a treasure, you have the ability to keep it preserved as is without ever removing another photo. Yes, some pages might be missing pictures we long to find and fill in that gap. But for now you can scan each page at 300dpi to digitally preserve it. If you are intent on printing any of the items on the page at the same size they are, then you are fine working with the scanned page as is at 300dpi. However, if you need a photo printed at a larger size, keep the entire page on the scanner and move the selection box to scan just the single photo you want. Change the resolution to something like 1200dpi if a close-up image such as the one above is desired. Then put all the digital files of the scanned pages and individual photos onto a DVD and share these files with anyone and everyone in the family! Now everyone has their very own album...well, almost! 

Just too Pink

Does your priceless photo collection contain photos that look a bit too "pink?" There are many ways to handle these items, but never scan them in grayscale mode just to make them black and white again. Grayscale digital files are less cooperative to work with during photo editing than those scanned in color. Scan everything in color mode, even if it makes the pinkish photos look even more ghastly pink as a digital scan file. Scanners are great tools to help us duplicate and share one-of-a-kind photos, but they do have a tendency sometimes to enhance colors you may have to mute a little during the editing process. You have the option during digital editing to fade out the pink, change the color to a sepia (more brownish) tone, or convert it to black and white. Here is a comparison of a pinkish scan converted to black and white.

Old Color Negatives Can Hold Treasured Images

If you know of anyone with a stash of old negatives (which are sometimes color "positives" as above), hopefully you will share this blog post with them. It's often tempting to toss what could be perceived as "useless" negatives, especially these days when it's become so difficult to find a place to "develop" prints from anything other than 35mm. An on-line search yields many places offering to handle such priceless items. However, most people are reluctant, to say the least, to let such pieces leave their hands and risk getting "lost in the mail." These days a relatively simple piece of equipment, a "film scanner," can take the above image and automatically turn it into the image below in one step. Obviously there is a bit of color damage and correction to be made to this photo using a computer and image editing software, but this example demonstrates the possibility of reaping family photos held in these old negatives.

Missing Pieces of a Photograph

This photo has suffered so much damage throughout the years, and the family hoped to recover whatever they could of the darling image before it completely fell apart. Fortunately there is enough of the original to "borrow from" to fill in much of the missing areas because the family was not looking to maintain historical accuracy. Budget constraints might cause you to place limits on the extent of restoration done by a professional. Be sure to fully discuss the options of printing a smaller size, cropping to lessen the area to restore, and any other ideas a specialist might suggest. There is a positive side to this limitation of funds you might be facing. In effect, you will end up with what can be considered a "more historical image" when restoration stops short of perfecting such a photo. No matter what level of restoration you can achieve (or afford to have done), the result will always provide you with the joy of a newly-found image for your family to print and share.

Water Damaged Photo

A severely damaged photograph just might be saved by some tight cropping as well as heavy restoration. Before deciding to toss such an image, be sure to look at the background and other parts of the image to see if anything can be "borrowed" to cover the damage. Sure the waves and sand are similar, but the main focus of this priceless image is now back on the girl, and that's how it should be! When scanning such images, you will want to increase the resolution enough to make a 300dpi print of the final cropped image. So if the original photo is half the size you intend the final print to be, scan at 600dpi. Scanning at above 600dpi increases your options regarding print size when the restored photo is cropped tightly.

Yellowing Photo

Ah, those yellowed 70's photos...They just might hold enough color to recover an amazing print. Scanning an image printed on that "bumpy" paper of old yields "dots" which can be overcome by blurring the scanned image a bit. However, if your original is blurry to begin with, you might want to keep the speckled look rather than risk having too blurry a final print. Many of these old pictures need some cropping, so be sure to scan at a high enough resolution to increase the size of the wanted images. In this instance, the original 3.5" square was scanned at 1200dpi, producing a cropped 5" x 7" print.

Grainy Photographs with Severe Surface Damage

The original is 3.5" x 4.5" and the family hoped to print this image much larger than it's original size. It isn't the damage that is determining the final print size, but the photo's "texture" or spotted appearance. Were this to be a very sharp original, a slight blurring of the surface would have produced a smoother image ready to print at the desired size. Unfortunately, it is so blurry to begin with that smoothing the surface would harm the final image too much. Printed at a smaller size, the photo looks great hanging on a wall in a wonderful frame. When looking at your old photos, remember that hanging their restored prints on a wall minimizes the appearance of surface texture enough to trick the eye into thinking you must have a marvelous original. Also, consider printing in black and white. The contrast helps "sharpen" the image, as opposed to the softer tones of a sepia print. However, sometimes sepia prints help minimize surface damage. Experiment with printing to see which works best for your image.

Removing Writing on Photos

There is much more than writing to remove on these two photos. Damage across the middle and bottom of one includes writing and surface problems. The other darling photo has writing across the middle. Thankfully the family had both photos, and restoration involved using parts of each to repair the other. If you are considering restoring damaged photographs, be sure to check for similar images. Even if they are not exactly the same, it might be possible to "borrow" some parts to fix the damages. When scanning such images, be sure to increase the resolution to gather more "good" pixels to repair the "bad" parts. If you need to crop most of the damage to retain a salvageable image, then be sure to increase the resolution in order to print an edited  image the size you desire.

Blue and Brown Photo

Having few photos of this family member means each photo is worth the effort to restore and share with everyone. Some photographs turn bluish after a while. It is up to you as to whether or not a sepia-toned restoration is the final choice. This gives you an idea of the clarity of a black and white restoration. Either choice is far better than simply copying the faded blue original!

Dark and Reddish Photos

This photo was a small, almost unnoticed one tucked into the pages of an aunt's album. My mother-in-law spotted it while we were scanning other items, and said it was her favorite wedding photo of her parents. Of course I had to try to recover this image for her, but it was pretty far gone. We decided a smaller print would be best (shows less imperfections), and scanned the original at about 600dpi, enough to print at double the size of the original photo if we could. With a bit of work she has a decent, if not great, version of this in her hands now, as her sister was the one with the only original. Fortunately we have another, better photo of this couple elsewhere on this blog.

Give Yourself Peace of Mind

This gentleman was born in 1826. Don't know for certain when this photo was taken, but suffice it to say he looks rather mature. The original print was only 3-3/8 inches tall and 2-1/2 inches wide. It is stuck onto a yellow piece of cardboard which is probably not archival material. If this original portrait was lost to further degradation from the cardboard or other damage, it could be replaced by a print of either the original or this restored version. That is one of the major reasons to consider restoring your one-of-a-kind photos. You will have a digital file of both the original scanned copy and your fabulous restored version. This will give you a great peace of mind and allow you the freedom of displaying your ancestors' portraits for all to see.

Fading and Discoloring Photos

Pulling out those old photos and running them through a photo-editing software program will yield you tons of incredible memories! No longer will you skip all those old faded, torn, discolored or poorly-lit pictures. Instead you will find yourself wondering which photo to restore next...and which memory you would like to sharpen! What an incredible memory booster!!! And oh so fun!

Restoring Faded Memories

Recently a friend related the story of her successful efforts to reunite long-lost baby and childhood photos and toys with a family she didn't even know--all because she decided to check out an estate sale and rummage through drawers of a dresser. Upon receipt of these precious memories, the father called her and spoke emotionally of his family's overwhelming joy at viewing cute baby, toddler and youth pictures they had thought were lost forever.

It just so happens that I have been knee-deep in old photos I'm digitally preserving and restoring for my husband's family. These pictures of all six siblings had been in my mother-in-law's closets and drawers for years. After several years of my begging and pleading, she has finally relinquished these precious items in time for a special family reunion.

Suddenly, while listening to my friend's story, I realized I was the one reuniting our family with long-lost photos of cute babies, toddlers and teens. My husband remembers seeing only a handful of these treasures through the years. He has been so glad to see the old, yellowed, faded and torn pictures regain clarify, color and vibrance. They reunite him with his childhood memories. In a few weeks I'll watch his mother and siblings turn the pages of photo albums holding prints of these long-lost treasures.

I am a scrapbooker. I am a photographer. I love working with recent photos of my family and making pages they can enjoy. And now I have the ability to restore all those old photos my mom has given me. My children have asked about their childhood photos. I can restore those pictures as well. And thanks to my friend's experience, I realize the tremendous importance of spending time reuniting my family with all these precious treasures.

What family memories do our drawers and closets hold? What treasures can we restore to our loved ones? These treasures, as far as our family is concerned, are indeed lost to them...forever lost if we don't open those boxes and envelopes and start reuniting those special photos with those who will joyfully pour over them and relish in the sweet memories.