In
February 2013, AnceStories’ Scanfest will be Six Years Old! Miriam Robbins
organizes and hosts this popular monthly event that welcomes anyone with a
stack of scanning and a few hours to spend chatting with other family
historians. Scanning can be a boring task, but Scanfest actually makes it fun!
Make
the most of your scanning time with these tips to help you get the most from
your scanning equipment and make the best use of your scanning hours.
Guest Post by Denise May
Levenick, The Family Curator, author
of How to Archive
Family Keepsakes
(Family Tree Books, 2012).
The #1 Secret to Scanning Success
Are
you getting the best possible results when you digitize family photos and
documents? Check your scanning savvy with these 6 Tips for Scanning Success.
Clean the Scanner Glass
Yep,
sounds pretty basic but it’s easy to forget. Old photos and documents are often
dirty and may even lose bits of paper when handled. Use a microfiber cloth
(used for eyeglasses or computer screens) to clean smudges and dirt from the
glass of your flat bed scanner. For tough jobs, lightly wet the cloth – not the
glass – then wipe the glass firmly with the damp cloth.
Use the Right Equipment For the Job
Equipment
does make a difference in the end result.
Your keepsake originals should only be digitized with a flat-bed scanner
or digital camera. DO NOT run heirlooms through a sheet-fed scanner where they
could be mangled and torn. Wand scanners are fine for books and pristine
documents, but less direct handling is safer for old paper.
Oversize documents can be
difficult to manipulate for on an 11 x 14-inch flat bed scanner; minimize the
potential for damage by using a digital camera mounted on a copy stand or
tripod.
Set Up A “Scan Station”
Make use of every minute by
keeping your equipment ready to go. If you have space, set up a Scan Station
near your computer on a file cabinet or table. Keep your scanner connected to
your computer with an external hard drive ready for file storage. Use two trays
or boxes to organize your work: To Be Scanned, Scanned. Don’t file away the
originals until you have added filenames and tags in your photo organizing
software.
Break Your Work Into Scanning Sessions
Save time and be more efficient
by breaking your scanning into two work sessions: In session one, complete the
actual scans; in session two, finish the computer work: add file names; write
metadata -- captions from the back of photos, tags with people, places, events,
copyright info; and place originals in archival storage.
Attend a Virtual Scanning Party
Scanning hundreds of old photos,
letters and documents can be a time-consuming task. Join an online scanning
party and watch your To Be Scanned pile dwindle down to nothing.
Check AnceStories for Scanfest, hosted
by Miriam Robbins at the AnceStories website, and 4YourFamilyStory for Sunday ScanDay
on FaceBook hosted
by Caroline Pointer.
And My All-Time Favorite #1 Secret to
Scanning Success –
Use Professional Mode
Most
scanners come pre-configured for easy scanning. You don’t have to do anything
after hitting the Scan button. But if you want access to some of the best
features of your flat-bed scanner, you’ll need to unlock the Professional Menu.
Look around on your scanner for a drop-down with more options, or check out the
manual. You may have Auto, Home, and Professional modes (on Epson), or some
other configuration.
When
you get to the Pro Menu, you will be able to set the best resolution for your
project, choose mode, target size, and unlock color correction and descreening
features. If you aren’t sure what all those options can do, refer to the manual
or the handy Scanning Guide in my book, How
to Archive Family Keepsakes (chapter 9).
For
most purposes, you only need to work with resolution (or DPI) and select Photo
or Document. If you wish, you can check Color Restoration to automatically
restore faded 1970’s color prints, or Descreening to get better images of
newspaper articles.
Guest Post by Denise May
Levenick, author of How to Archive
Family Keepsakes: Learn How to Preserve Family Photos, Memorabilia &
Genealogy Records by Denise May Levenick (Family Tree Books, 2012). Copyright,
2012, Denise May Levenick. All Rights Reserved. www.thefamilycurator.com.
How
to Archive Family Keepsakes
(Family Tree Books, 2012) ISBN 1440322236
Paperback / eBook Family Tree Books, Amazon.com, Scribd, iBooks, Barnes&Noble.com. 10% Savings Coupon ShopFamilyTree.
Paperback / eBook Family Tree Books, Amazon.com, Scribd, iBooks, Barnes&Noble.com. 10% Savings Coupon ShopFamilyTree.
Join the Blog Tour
Join the Blog Book Tour for How to Archive Family Keepsakes January
10-26, 2013 for author interviews, book excerpts, giveaways, and more. Visit
the Blog Book Tour Page at The Family Curator website for the complete schedule.
Proceeds from the sale of How
to Archive Family Keepsakes during the Book Tour will help fund the 2013 Student Genealogy
Grant founded in 2010 in honor of Denise’s mother, Suzanne Winsor Freeman.
Blog Book Tour
Giveaways
Comment on daily Book Blog Tour Post
Tweet the Tour Twitter @FamilyCurator #keepsakebooktour
Share the Tour on FaceBook, Google+, Goodreads
Tweet the Tour Twitter @FamilyCurator #keepsakebooktour
Share the Tour on FaceBook, Google+, Goodreads
It’s
easy to enter to win a free copy of Denise’s new book or one of the weekly giveaway
prizes. All you have to do is leave a comment to the Blog Tour Post hosted at
one of the official tour blogs. Random winners will also be selected from
social media comments on Twitter, FaceBook, and Google+.
Each
blog tour post comment gives you one chance to win; one entry per post per day,
please. Leave a comment at each stop on the blog tour and increase your chances
of winning. The lucky names will be announced each Saturday during the tour at The Family Curator.
About the Author
In
every family, someone ends up with “the stuff.” Denise May Levenick is a
writer, researcher, and speaker with a passion for preserving and sharing
family treasures of all kinds. She is the creator of the award-winning family
history blog, The Family Curator www.TheFamilyCurator.com
and author of the new book How to Archive Family Keepsakes:
Learn How to Preserve Family Photos, Memorabilia and Genealogy Records,
(Family Tree Books, 2012).
16 comments:
Thanks for the tip about using Professional Mode. I never knew it existed. I continue to learn something new each day of the blog book tour.
These tips are so timely! I have a scanning project I am working on the moment. I had no idea that there was a Professional Mode to unlock! Thanks so much!
Another tip I encourage is when scanning documents, do them at high enough resolution and capture as a PDF. With my Acrobat software, I can then scan them for OCR capture and make them fully text searchable. Great for yearbooks!
Thanks for the scanning tips. I'll have to check my scanner for Professional Mode. I'm enjoying your blog tour.
Thanks for the scanning tips. I'll have to check my scanner for Professional Mode. I'm enjoying the blog tour.
Don't feel left out... it took me a while to find that Pro Mode too! I love all the new tools that it allowed.
Bonnie - good plan to scan as PDFs. It's a stable format and good for archiving. I use TIFF and often convert to PDF to save file space, because I can edit or enlarge those tiny yearbook photos as TIFF files.
Thanks for stopping by the Tour. ~ Denise
Great tip on using the "professional mode." Guess I'll have to look for mine. I'm not sure I even knew there was one! LOL
Resolution is key. Always scan at the highest DPI you think you will need. You can always make a copy with lower resolution, but not the other way around.
I love the idea of setting up a Scan Station. It sounds like a great way to work through things. And I've never heard of Professional Mode before--I'll have to check my scanner settings. Thanks for the great tips, Denise!
Thanks for the great tips on setting up the scanner! How important is it to select document when you are scanning a letter as opposed to photo?
Professional mode is great, and you can save your preferred settings so you're all ready to go when you have some time to scan. You can save seperate settings for documents, photos, slides, etc.
Kathleen, If you are in Pro Mode you can make settings that are best for Documents anyway, but Photo or Doc helps give you a start. In Home or Guided Mode it's about the only way to tell the scanner what you are working with.
Hope this helps. ~ Denise
Kathleen, it depends upon the document. If it's a typed letter or statement, especially a modern one, I would use the document setting. If it is a vintage record, I would likely use the photo setting to ensure capturing any image details.
I think the scan station and scanning sessions are great ideas. I am already thinking about how to set that up and hope to get lots of scanning done soon!
I started using my Professional mode right away because I have so many faded prints. But I never knew that Descreening was for Newspaper prints. Thanks for the tip!
Apparently some of the comments didn't make it to my email, so I apologize for publishing them so late!
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