Scanning Photos

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

But if you don't want to do this then you can:

      • Use your own scanning equipment.
Obviously, make sure the glass is clean before scanning.

or
      • Use a high street copying/scanning shop.
Most photocopying 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 jpeg. (You may have been told that it is better to save as a tiff. This is true but tiffs produce a very large file. You might have to scan at 300ppi to produce a manageable file. It is better to have a 600ppi jpeg.) 
  • Do not have any adjustments made (eg for contrast or colour) in the scanning. Leave that to us.
      • If the original photo is large, you may end up with a large file which may be difficult to email. (Some email services will not accept files larger than 10mb, say.) If so, you might like to use the service at www.wetransfer.com which enables you to send large files free of charge. We at PhotoValet can accommodate as large a file as you are likely to create.