StarDestroyer.Net BBS

All;

I want to archive my old family pictures on CDs. What settings would you recommend for the scanner for the best possible archiving? DPI setting, resolution? The dude at the photo store said anything over 800x600 would be great, but 1024x768 would be better.

If I were you I'd probably go for 1280 X1024 and make zipped folders of related photos. Make sure that you're scanning in lossless JPEG or some other lossless format. The sizes will be bigger but if your archiving you want to make sure that they're preserved well. Anyway, if you follow my reccomendations then they'll be zipped any way.

Thanks, DD, but what do you mean "zipped folders of related photos" ?

Lord Poe wrote:Thanks, DD, but what do you mean "zipped folders of related photos" ?

I suppose that's just a handy way to keep them organized and save a bit of filespace.

RogueIce wrote:

Lord Poe wrote:Thanks, DD, but what do you mean "zipped folders of related photos" ?

I suppose that's just a handy way to keep them organized and save a bit of filespace.

Ah. Getting technical on me.

Lord Poe wrote:

RogueIce wrote:

Lord Poe wrote:Thanks, DD, but what do you mean "zipped folders of related photos" ?

I suppose that's just a handy way to keep them organized and save a bit of filespace.

Ah. Getting technical on me.

Underestimating your mad skillz perhaps?

Right Click>New>Folder
Drag Scanned Pictures into folder, Named In a way that Signifies their Related Nature (IE Camping, Aunt Meybelene Et Cetra)
Right Click Folder > Send To> Compressed (zipped) Folder
Do this till you get enough of 'em to fill a cd, then stick 'em on there, burn it, label it, put it in a case, Rinse and Repeat. (This only works with Windows XP and Maybe 2000 (I haven't used it in so long I don't remember). If you use another version of windows you'll have to modify the directions to fit. If you use Mac or Linux then you shouldn't need to be told how to do this (but since I don't think this is the case that's probably irrelevant).

Thanks again, DD!

Should I raise the DPI as far as it will go?

Your file size is probably gonna grow exponentially with higher DPI settings. Sadly for you I don't have much experiance with archiving scanned pictures so it all depends on what kind of quality you're going for. I'd probably say atleast 400 and probably closer to 700-800 would be good for archival quality photos, but I'm no expert so I'd get a second opinion before I started merrily scanning away. If no one posts in the thread soon enough for your liking I'd atleast suggest consulting the good doctor google before getting started.

darthdavid wrote:Your file size is probably gonna grow exponentially with higher DPI settings. Sadly for you I don't have much experiance with archiving scanned pictures so it all depends on what kind of quality you're going for. I'd probably say atleast 400 and probably closer to 700-800 would be good for archival quality photos, but I'm no expert so I'd get a second opinion before I started merrily scanning away. If no one posts in the thread soon enough for your liking I'd atleast suggest consulting the good doctor google before getting started.

Thanks. I'll have to do some reading, all right. And man, this is going to take a LONG time!

I must disagree, do not .zip the photos.

1) .zip compression does work OK for uncompressed formats, like .bmp or tiff, but does not have a major effect on .jpeg files in most cases. (Typical .zip compression to a jpeg is 0-2%)

2) CD-R disks are dirt cheap, about $0.25 when bought in bulk, so even making disks full of uncompressed, or lossless compressed (.png) files is realativelt economical.

3) If the disk recieves minor damage, the a .zip file will not be recoverable, because of the compression. Minor damage to the CD will allow reovery of more files, & possibley partial recovery of damaged files.

Example, a family member knicks the CDR, through the data layer. It is now impossible to recover the data that was there. If that is part of an uncompressed file or a jpeg, it may still be possible to load up the file in an image porgram or a webrowser (which are pretty good at decoding damaged files) & revovering at a damaged file. If on the other hand it was part of a zip archive, the whole archive would be corrupted, unrecoverable, & you would have lost all of the pictures in it.

Oh & lastly, w/ high quality jpeg archives you can put the disk into DVD players, etc for you're less technical firends, or set up slide show picture CDs.