Digital scrapbooking, scanning and organizing your pictures

          Scanning is fine for those heirloom photos, but scanning all the family photos? Isn’t that a bit tedious, you ask. Not really. And there are some advantages. You know photos that yellowed and discolored in my original albums? Well, with the use of editing software, I was able to restore many of those images. While I use Photoshop, which might be too advanced for some, or more than you want to spend for the software, there are some affordable software programs out there that will improve your images.
          Some of these programs might come bundled with your scanner, computer or camera. Or you can pick up a program like Photoelf (at photoelf.com), which can easily perform minor editing tasks, while also being a great tool in organizing your image files.
          When scanning images, I rarely scan larger than 200ppi. If the image is too large, it slows down my computer, and since I am usually printing at least 4 images to an 8 ½ x 11” page, there is no reason to go larger. Sometimes, if the original image is very small, I will scan at 300ppi.
          A caution - when using JPEGS, each time you save the file, it deteriorates. Continue to make changes, and save over and over again, and you will notice a significant loss in the photo quality. The solution, save your originals on a file, and make a copy of that file to use in your scrapbooking. In fact, it is a good idea to save your scanned files on a CD or DVD, as your “originals”.
          I currently use a HP Scanner. Since most of my photos are snap shot size, I can scan about 6 photos at a time. The scanner recognizes I have more than one picture on the glass, and it will scan each picture individually. My old scanner was unable to do this, which meant it would scan all 6 images on one jpeg file. (Or if it could do this, I never figured out how!). I then made 6 copies of the image, and cropped each one. This was a bit tedious.
          If possible, I would suggest scanning all of your photos before beginning your scrapbooking. It will make it easier to organize your photographs. I wasn’t able to do this, and it is one of my regrets.