Scanning Photos


Quality scanning is a very important first step in any photo restoration or enhancement. You can send the photos to us and let us do the scanning on our high resolution equipment.

But, there are other options:

      • Use your own scanning equipment.
Many domestic scanners do a perfectly good job. Obviously, make sure the glass is clean before scanning.
            
or

      • Use a high street copying/scanning shop.
Most photocopying or printing shops will be able to scan and then save the images onto a CD/DVD or a USB memory stick. You can then take that back to your pc and email the images to us.


The following principles apply, however you get the scans done:

      • Scan at 600 ppi and save as a highest quality (i.e. lowest compression) jpeg. You may have been told that saving as a tiff file produces a better image. This is true, but tiffs produce a very large file. We prefer a 600 ppi jpeg to a similarly sized 300ppi tiff.      (Note: Your scanner may say "dpi" instead of "ppi" .)                                                     
      • Scan in 24 bit colour, even if it is a black and white photo.
      • Do not have any adjustments made (eg for contrast or colour) in the scanning. Leave that to us.
      • If you end up with a large file which is difficult to email, you might like to use the very user-friendly service at www.wetransfer.com which enables you to send large files free of charge.