At 3/10/04 08:05 PM Wednesday, BrownsSRQ@aol.com wrote: *********START OF ORIGINAL MESSAGE TEXT********* >Slides and negative scanning -- you are light years ahead of me. I am >just >trying to do simple scanning (b & w) of old family photos into appropriate > >written text about family members. Can these old photos be damaged by the > >scanning process? Would it be better to take digital camera pictures of >these old >photos and put into the computer for printing? Thanks for the tip to keep >these >old pictures in the climate controlled bank safe deposit box. >Thanks, Cuz Joyce **********END OF ORIGINAL MESSAGE TEXT*********** Hi Cousin Joyce, No, the photos aren't harmed by the scanning process. They've already been exposed to more light than they would receive if scanned thousands of times. As to taking digital pictures of photos, you COULD do that, but the results would much less than satisfactory. I've scanned lots of old B&W pictures and haven't harmed them in any way. A word or two about scanning photos. To get the best file from which to print, one should only scan at a resolution that is as high as the printer will print. I've seen recommendations that one scan at 72 dpi and that just won't work! Yes, you can do it, but you'll be able to print only at a very, very small size without losing resolution and sharpness. How to scan should always be dictated by the graphics program you use, how much memory and resources it uses, how much RAM you have on your system, etc. I usually scan really good pictures at 360 or 720 dpi. It depends on how they look at each resolution. My printer, even a very old one, will print at 1440 dpi, but scanning at that resolution will make a very, very large file, and will take up all the RAM on most users' systems, especially if anything else is running while scanning. I've scanned and printed pictures at 360 dpi that actually look much better than the originals. It all depends on the graphics program you use. I use Paint Shop Pro (PSP and no advertising plug here, just reporting what I use) and the latest versions of it allow some great restoration techniques. Of course, there are a few such programs on the market, but they cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars more than PSP. I like PSP's "One Touch" utility, which doesn't always give the best results, but I always try it first, then, if it doesn't do the job I want, I go back and start over, manually tweaking color, brightness, contrast, sharpness, etc. I did one recently which was a picture of my wife's sister, taken in the 1950's. It was in color and had yellowed with age. Everything that should have been blue in the picture was, or course, green, due to the yellowing. Green things such as grass and tree leaves, were yellow-green, and other colors were off a lot. I used "One Touch" on it, but then had to correct the blue-green-yellow aspects of the picture. It turned out very nice, although my wife says her sister's shorts are the wrong color blue, as if she could really remember the color after 50 years! Here's a tip on scanning thin documents, such as newspaper, in which print on the reverse side show through. On thing that really bugs me is to receive a file that someone has sent me, especially of a newspaper article or picture, and it can hardly be read because of the print on the reverse showing through. To prevent this, place the article you want to scan in your scanner, THEN place a piece of black paper on top of it! The resulting picture will be a little darker than it would normally be, but you will NOT see the print on the reverse side, and can always lighten the entire picture in the graphics program. Gotta run, Yer Cuz, George -- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 7.0.225 / Virus Database: 262.4.3 - Release Date: 3/11/04