Massive family photo scanning project

[David Minkovsky]

Hi,

I'm a college student and I plan on taking on a massive family
document archiving project as soon as I get out of school. Like many
families, we have lots of photos, and I was wondering whether there is
some way to minimize time spent on the terribly boring job of scanning
photographs. This winter I tested out HPs autofeeding scanner (I
forgot the model number) and was largely disappointed. Overall, the
scanner was slow at 300dpi, the autofeeder was okay, but would mess up
sometimes, and did not handle various types of paper too well. It was
also limited to 4x6" prints.

What I need is automation. For example, I want to leave a stack of
photos, have them all batch scanned, and then come back and work on
croping and adjusting them. That, of course, is an ideal, but in
general, given the volume of photos that I need to scan, I cannot deal
with a scanner that requires me to re-load the scanning software EVERY
time, blow away dust, flip in a new picture, etc, for EVERY photo that
I want to scan. This makes the process not only unbearably boring, but
also unbearably slow.

I also have several technical questions. I've been scanning at 300dpi
and saving my files only as TIFs. Is this fine? In Photoshop, I am
presented with several choices of compression for TIF files... which
should I use? Also, for black and white photos, is it worth scanning
at 32bit, or should I stick to greyscale?

Alright. That's all for now. I'd really appreciate suggestions on
hardware, since I'm sure others have undertaken similar tasks.

Thanks,
Dmitry

 

[Charlie]

For most of thw questions, it's a matter of opinion, and your's is as
good as anyone else's. Anyway, here are mine....

Hi,

I'm a college student and I plan on taking on a massive family
document archiving project as soon as I get out of school. Like many
families, we have lots of photos, and I was wondering whether there is
some way to minimize time spent on the terribly boring job of scanning
photographs. This winter I tested out HPs autofeeding scanner (I
forgot the model number) and was largely disappointed. Overall, the
scanner was slow at 300dpi, the autofeeder was okay, but would mess up
sometimes, and did not handle various types of paper too well. It was
also limited to 4x6" prints.

The best way to minimize time spent on scanning a massive amout of
photographs, is to seriously cull the worse ones beforehand. If you
have 5000 photographs to scan, select only the best 500, and you
reduced the workload by a factor of ten, as well as improved the value
of the final product. (No one wants to look at poor quality photos, or
duplicates that have only "one" persons head cut off. no matter how
carefully they were scanned and color restored.)

What I need is automation. For example, I want to leave a stack of
photos, have them all batch scanned, and then come back and work on
croping and adjusting them. That, of course, is an ideal, but in
general, given the volume of photos that I need to scan, I cannot deal
with a scanner that requires me to re-load the scanning software EVERY
time, blow away dust, flip in a new picture, etc, for EVERY photo that
I want to scan. This makes the process not only unbearably boring, but
also unbearably slow.
\

No, you don't need automation, not if you want to do a good job. Just
carefully scan the best prints you can get. I don't know of any
scanner that requires you to reload the software afer every scan...
but if you find one, you've already decided not to buy it, so you're
already making good choices.

I also have several technical questions. I've been scanning at 300dpi
and saving my files only as TIFs. Is this fine? In Photoshop, I am
presented with several choices of compression for TIF files... which
should I use? Also, for black and white photos, is it worth scanning
at 32bit, or should I stick to greyscale?

Why 32 bit? Color prints scanned at 24 bit & 300 ppi will allow you
to capture everything in the print. I'd stick to 300 ppi for
photographs, and I scan black & white prints in grayscale. I
personally don't like compressed tiffs because the load slower, and so
I waste time at the saving of a small amount of disc space. Not worth
it to me, I save as uncompressed tiffs.

Alright. That's all for now. I'd really appreciate suggestions on
hardware, since I'm sure others have undertaken similar tasks.

Hardware isn't too important, other than don't get a high resolution
scanner that's very slow even when scanning at 300 ppi. A scanner
that's very fast at 300 ppi will work just fine, even though it cost
only about $100 or less. You certainly don't need a $400 scanner for
this project. Look for scanning speed, and don't try to get
automation... just save all that money because you'll end up scanning
at most 4 prints at a time, and placing them on the scanner by hand
after dusting off each one.

OF course, the above only applies to scanning prints. If you have
negatives or color slides, especially 35mm or smaller, then you need a
dedicated film scanne. a cheap flat bed wan't handle those.

Thanks,
Dmitry

Charlie Hoffpauir
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/

 

[Don]

I think all of that is very good advice. I'm in the midst of a similar
project, and have been for 2 years. Believe me, most of the photos you have
aren't worth scanning. Keep them if you must, but scan the best ones first.

Personally, I do like compressed TIFF. Whether they are slow or not I think
depends on you CPU speed and the amount of memory you have. If you have a
fast computer that can uncompress faster tahn you can read the file from the
disk, it will actually load faster.

Don

 

[Carl Miller]

I
personally don't like compressed tiffs because the load slower, and so
I waste time at the saving of a small amount of disc space. Not worth
it to me, I save as uncompressed tiffs.

And, like me, you'll eventually come across that ONE relative who's
crappy software DOESN'T SUPPORT COMPRESSED TIFFs(!!!) and for the rest
of your life, or until you kill him, you'll never hear the end of how he
couldn't view that CD of family pictures you sent him that one
Christmas, even though he's probably the only remaining human on earth
whose software doesn't support compressed tiffs.

 

[Preston Earle]

: "I also have several technical questions. I've
been scanning at 300dpi and saving my files only as TIFs. Is this fine?"
--------------------------

I'd save as medium-quality jpeg's. The benefits of 95% reduction in file
size overwhelm any quality issues, IMHO.

Preston Earle
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Don]

Good point!

Don

And, like me, you'll eventually come across that ONE relative who's
crappy software DOESN'T SUPPORT COMPRESSED TIFFs(!!!) and for the rest
of your life, or until you kill him, you'll never hear the end of how he
couldn't view that CD of family pictures you sent him that one
Christmas, even though he's probably the only remaining human on earth
whose software doesn't support compressed tiffs.

 

[Roger Halstead]

And, like me, you'll eventually come across that ONE relative who's
crappy software DOESN'T SUPPORT COMPRESSED TIFFs(!!!) and for the rest
of your life, or until you kill him, you'll never hear the end of how he
couldn't view that CD of family pictures you sent him that one
Christmas, even though he's probably the only remaining human on earth
whose software doesn't support compressed tiffs.

Why do it the hard way?

I scan to TIFFs, I edit TIFFs, and anything that goes to some one else
is a JPG.

Copy the photos to a new directory, run a batch conversion and save to
the CD, or DVD.

Unless some one really wants the resolution, I just never bother using
up the extra space.

OTOH, I NEVER throw any old family photos away, no matter how bad.
The one you throw out just might be the only image of some ancestor.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

 

[Roger Halstead]

Hi,

I'm a college student and I plan on taking on a massive family

Here's my take on organizing the project:
http://www.rogerhalstead.com/scanning.htm
The page is not finished, but it's a good start.

document archiving project as soon as I get out of school. Like many
families, we have lots of photos, and I was wondering whether there is
some way to minimize time spent on the terribly boring job of scanning

Some cull liberally. I never cull "old family photos".

photographs. This winter I tested out HPs autofeeding scanner (I
forgot the model number) and was largely disappointed. Overall, the
scanner was slow at 300dpi, the autofeeder was okay, but would mess up
sometimes, and did not handle various types of paper too well. It was
also limited to 4x6" prints.

Why not scan the negatives? That is if you have them.
The results should be far better.

What I need is automation. For example, I want to leave a stack of
photos, have them all batch scanned, and then come back and work on
croping and adjusting them. That, of course, is an ideal, but in

Yes, for some flat beds you can get a sheet feeder. They run more
than most flat beds.

general, given the volume of photos that I need to scan, I cannot deal
with a scanner that requires me to re-load the scanning software EVERY
time, blow away dust, flip in a new picture, etc, for EVERY photo that
I want to scan. This makes the process not only unbearably boring, but
also unbearably slow.

I can't imagine having to reload the software... IE application.

Yes, it is slow and boring, but if you have the ambition and
dedication for the project it will be lots of both. If you don't have
the ambition and dedication to do a good job, ... forget it and do
something else. I have at least half again as many negatives as
slides and they are slow going at only 4 or 5 per batch. Once those
are finished I have two large boxes of very old prints from tintypes
to the petrified cardboard prints. Probably another thousand or so.

It took me about 7 weeks to make it through the family slides and I
have a bulk feeder that will take 50 at a time, but slides are
notorious for jamming. Prints? I can do from 2 to 3 a minute on my
HP 5470c.

What I do is start up the scanner every time I come in here to work
with the computer and just keep feeding the scanner in between typing.

I also have several technical questions. I've been scanning at 300dpi
and saving my files only as TIFs. Is this fine? In Photoshop, I am

TIFFs at 300 dpi? I'd just save them as read only jpgs.

presented with several choices of compression for TIF files... which
should I use? Also, for black and white photos, is it worth scanning
at 32bit, or should I stick to greyscale?

That's up to you. They will look different and you can always change
to gray scale later.

Alright. That's all for now. I'd really appreciate suggestions on
hardware, since I'm sure others have undertaken similar tasks.

Don't forget that the short term back ups and long term archiving
require about as much attention to begin as does the scanning.
Any project of this magnitude requires a good plane for both. Just
think of spending several months scanning and then having a hard drive
crash with no backup.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

 

[pioe[rmv]]

TIFFs at 300 dpi? I'd just save them as read only jpgs.

Our digitized photographic heritage should not be stored for posterity
in lossily compressed files.

JPEG is therefore a format to be avoided in master files for archiving.

Per Inge Oestmoen, Norway

 

[RSD99]

"Carl Miller" posted:
"...
And, like me, you'll eventually come across that ONE relative who's
crappy software DOESN'T SUPPORT COMPRESSED TIFFs(!!!) and for the rest
of your life, or until you kill him, you'll never hear the end of how he
couldn't view that CD of family pictures you sent him that one
Christmas, even though he's probably the only remaining human on earth
whose software doesn't support compressed tiffs.
...."

If you send him/her a CD or DVD ... why not just include a freeware viewer program that
can be run from the distribution disk.

FWIW: I've often used SlowView ... and it's anything but "slow!"
http://www.slowview.at/

 

[Mickey]

Hi,

I'm a college student and I plan on taking on a massive family
document archiving project as soon as I get out of school. Like many
families, we have lots of photos, and I was wondering whether there is
some way to minimize time spent on the terribly boring job of scanning
photographs. This winter I tested out HPs autofeeding scanner (I
forgot the model number) and was largely disappointed. Overall, the
scanner was slow at 300dpi, the autofeeder was okay, but would mess up
sometimes, and did not handle various types of paper too well. It was
also limited to 4x6" prints.

What I need is automation. For example, I want to leave a stack of
photos, have them all batch scanned, and then come back and work on
croping and adjusting them. That, of course, is an ideal, but in
general, given the volume of photos that I need to scan, I cannot deal
with a scanner that requires me to re-load the scanning software EVERY
time, blow away dust, flip in a new picture, etc, for EVERY photo that
I want to scan. This makes the process not only unbearably boring, but
also unbearably slow.

I also have several technical questions. I've been scanning at 300dpi
and saving my files only as TIFs. Is this fine? In Photoshop, I am
presented with several choices of compression for TIF files... which
should I use? Also, for black and white photos, is it worth scanning
at 32bit, or should I stick to greyscale?

Alright. That's all for now. I'd really appreciate suggestions on
hardware, since I'm sure others have undertaken similar tasks.

Thanks,
Dmitry

Don't know the answer but raising the question in hopes someone else can comment.

In trying to automate this task there is a need for software to assign a file
name and save the scan to disk. I've scanned in strips of 35mm negs but have
always had to manually name and save. Are there programs that will automate the
process?

Mickey

 

[Don]

Why do it the hard way?

I scan to TIFFs, I edit TIFFs, and anything that goes to some one else
is a JPG.

Actually, that's what I do as well. All of my original scans are archived
as 16-bit TIFFs. I edit to 8-bit TIFFs, since Photoshop can't handle most
oerations as 16-bit yet, and archive those as well. I haven't distributed
the complete results as yet, but what I have sent are mostly JPEGs.

OTOH, I NEVER throw any old family photos away, no matter how bad.
The one you throw out just might be the only image of some ancestor.

I also don't throw photos away, although I may never scan the thousands of
poor and redundant photos I have.

Don

 

[false_dmitrii]

Hi,

I'm a college student and I plan on taking on a massive family
document archiving project as soon as I get out of school. Like many
families, we have lots of photos, and I was wondering whether there is
some way to minimize time spent on the terribly boring job of scanning
photographs.

Don't scan the boring ones. While you're still in college, can you
read or write for your courses while you wait for the scanner to
operate?

What I need is automation. For example, I want to leave a stack of
photos, have them all batch scanned, and then come back and work on
croping and adjusting them. That, of course, is an ideal, but in
general, given the volume of photos that I need to scan, I cannot deal
with a scanner that requires me to re-load the scanning software EVERY
time, blow away dust, flip in a new picture, etc, for EVERY photo that
I want to scan. This makes the process not only unbearably boring, but
also unbearably slow.

I can't comment on scanner automation. Depending on your desired
output quality, couldn't you place several photos on a flatbed at
once? Good software will let you expose each separately. Otherwise,
some pictures will suffer as you try to find a balance.

Dust is a fact of life; all I can suggest is that you start with a
clean workspace and try to minimize the chances for dust to enter the
scan area. If there's a lot of dust on the scanner, wipe it off
instead of blowing the dust into the air. With less dust in the air
at the outset, it will be less of a chore to clean the scanner each
time. And wear photo gloves. I'd presume that a consumer-level
batch scanner would still pick up dust during operation--and you
wouldn't get a chance to clean it, either. Each print might carry
dust, too, though at 300dpi the smaller stuff shouldn't matter.

Unless you're scanning RAW, you're already compromising your output
somewhat if you don't adjust your images beforehand, right?
Auto-exposure is never perfect. And batch scanning won't offer you a
chance to straighten crooked alignments beforehand, requiring
image-degrading software rotation down the line. I'm not saying that
batch scanning would be "wrong"--after all, I don't know anything
about it. Just considering the possible downsides.

I also have several technical questions. I've been scanning at 300dpi
and saving my files only as TIFs. Is this fine? In Photoshop, I am
presented with several choices of compression for TIF files... which
should I use? Also, for black and white photos, is it worth scanning
at 32bit, or should I stick to greyscale?

Scanning B&W in color gives you more "detail" channels and options for
image correction, especially with fading. You can always convert the
file to grayscale later, after you've corrected it. If you're happy
with your images as-is and space is an issue, 8-bit grayscale should
be just fine. Some (B&W?) prints produce significant detail beyond
300dpi; experiment from time to time to see if it's relevant to yours
(weigh desired print resolution and file size against potential
long-term needs). Format matters if you're sending photos to others
or lack the ability to convert to another format if the scheme loses
support. Lossless TIFF and lossy, degrading JPEG have the most
support. LZW is the preferred TIFF compression method, but
uncompressed is "safer" for compatibility. Test your compression
options on your images to see which is most effective.

Alright. That's all for now. I'd really appreciate suggestions on
hardware, since I'm sure others have undertaken similar tasks.

Once again, I can only comment on my own scanner, not a batch one.
The Epson Perfection 4870 offers Digital ICE for photo prints. I
haven't seen any impact on dust, but it does try to cover up
significant wrinkles and tears. You also get ROC for fade
correction. If you're good at Photoshop, I'm not sure either would
justify the cost.

I didn't find scanning prints one-by-one to be overly tedious or time
consuming, especially at 300dpi. If possible, make it a long-term
project and do it in manageable amounts to keep yourself sane. Do
some reading or computer work while you wait between scans...many
apparently retouch their previous scans during the intervals. My own
roadblock has been choosing the right software to produce the best
output and configuring it properly; otherwise I'd be well on my way.

Dust, the biggest issue, can be managed (carefully) with just a
microfiber cloth and an air squeeze pump. You'd likely lose more
quality from batch scanning than from allowing a few specks to
accumulate between scans.

Hope this is reasonably accurate.
false_dmitrii

 

[Charlie]

Don't know the answer but raising the question in hopes someone else can comment.

In trying to automate this task there is a need for software to assign a file
name and save the scan to disk. I've scanned in strips of 35mm negs but have
always had to manually name and save. Are there programs that will automate the
process?

Mickey

Hmmm. I think every scanning program I've used does that. I know for
sure that Vuescan automaticall increases the number that is used for
the file name.

Charlie Hoffpauir
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/

 

[Roger Halstead]

Our digitized photographic heritage should not be stored for posterity
in lossily compressed files.

JPEG is therefore a format to be avoided in master files for archiving.

If I were scanning prints and at 300 dpi I'd not hesitate to use JPGs
and mark them "read only". There just isn't that much information in
a print.

Now, scanning negatives and slides I would (and do) use 4000 dpi and
uncompressed TIFFs.

After saving the first generation to DVD I then edit, manipulate, or
what ever. The original scans are saved with no manipulation and
being on DVD are read only.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

 

[David R]

I've been woundering about batch converstions from TIFF to JPG. How
do you do that ?

 

[Mac McDougald]

I've been woundering about batch converstions from TIFF to JPG. How
do you do that ?

Photoshop, you record an action and play it back on unlimited number of
files in a folder.

IrfanView (free) will do much the same with its Batch feature.

Mac
============

 

[Roger Halstead]

Photoshop, you record an action and play it back on unlimited number of
files in a folder.

You should also have the ability to select <batch processing> from the
drop down menu under <file>

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com<snip>

 

[Mac McDougald]

You should also have the ability to select <batch processing> from the
drop down menu under <file>

That is where you specify the action you want to run.
But (at least through version 7) PS doesn't have built-in conversion like
Elements or IrfanView.

Mac
=============

 

[ggull]

I think all of that is very good advice. I'm in the midst of a similar
project, and have been for 2 years. Believe me, most of the photos you have
aren't worth scanning. Keep them if you must, but scan the best ones

first.

"aren't worth scanning" depends on the purpose of the scans.

Each family member to whom you distribute this may have different interests
(maybe you hate Aunt Bee, but she might be someone else's favorite) or out
of 20 seemingly indistinguishable snapshots of Cousin Em everyone might
prefer a different expression or a different group of faults in the photo.
Even that seemingly accidental photo of the sidewalk might spark someone's
memory.

My own take has been to do a quick-and-dirty run of everything, or at least
a great deal. If the photos are in album pages, this may be much simpler
than trying to pry them out and cleaning them before scanning. It also
gives you a good overview of what you have, and creates an index of what
exists from which more detailed scans can be requested, especially if you
have album pages the way people used to do them 40 or 60 years ago ...
grouped chronologically, with written descriptions. For this run, don't
worry too much about dust and such, and depending on storage requirements
you might even use jpeg compression. As a different process, "later"
although it could go on in parallel, you can do more attentive, higher
quality, scans of selected photos, that 10% mentioned. These might not just
be the "best", but the most important and/or with the greatest potential for
enhancement (the only known photo of Great Grampa Zeke with the ketchup
stain on it).