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November 5, 2006

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I had previously posted a cropped out version of myself from this original photo, and thought I'd use it again for today's posting. This is a picture of my sister and I and the family dog, Pill, from quite a few years ago. The original photo had faded and was actually not all that good quality, and the digital camera captured it about as good as it looked. But these old photos are definitely losing their original colors, and I need to get busy and save them before they've faded even more.

Digital photography tip: "Scanners? We don't need no stinkin' scanners!"

So often I have run into the problem of wanting to scan a document or photo and not had my scanner handy, or had the time to turn it on and set it up every time. But one day I realized, "Why don't I just use my digital camera, and take a picture of it?" Well, that's what I did, and since then I really haven't used my scanner much at all. Actually, some years ago, before digital cameras were at the high resolutions that they are now, it was almost imperative to use a scanner for any means of high quality reproduction of old photos or documents. But now, with most cameras rating at resolutions of over 3 megapixels, it's a great way to quickly capture documents and photos. Just consider how long it takes to set up an image on the flat-bed scanner, close the lid, open up the appropriate program on the computer and scan it. Then how long it takes to save it and crop it and edit it from there. Now consider taking the photo, point the camera at it, and just take a picture of it. It's that simple. Then you just dump the pictures to the computer as you normally would any other photos.

But of course there is a bit more specifics to consider if you want to get a better quality reproduction of your old photos. With all of our old photos sitting in boxes and photo albums, and collecting dust and fading, it would really be nice to digitally store them and save them for years to come. So what I recommend is to set yourself up a stand of some kind to place the photos on, set the camera up on a tripod, at a reasonable distance from the stand, and take your pictures that way. Now you must take into consideration for your own cameras settings and focal points and other variables. For example: Some cameras will not allow you to take a picture very close, so you have to adjust the distance from the photo stand accordingly. Adjust the ambient light of the room, preferably setting the stand with the photo under a good, bright light, but avoiding the direction of glare off of the photo. You also don't want your camera to flash or it will just reflect off of the photo and give you a bright white nothing. No, make sure you turn your flash off.

If taking a whole series of photos, set up your stand with some sort of object so that each and every old photo is easily set in the same place every time. That way you can just put your photo in place, take a picture, and go to the next one, and the next, and so on. 

Then, work a little bit on the distance and focal point of your cameras and make sure that the zoom is set accordingly. I'm not sure if I can explain it very well, but most camera's initial focal point is actually a lot wider than you want and your photos will have a little bit of a bubble-type look to them. Set the zoom in just a bit and play with it so that the edges of the photos are not curved and you get the straightest edge possible. Feel free to email me if you have more questions about this.

Now make sure that your camera is set for a manual focus, and you have the best focus on the stand and photos. This way each and every picture will be the same and you won't have to make any adjustments. Just swap pictures and "click", swap pictures and "click", etc. etc. 

Play around with all the other settings and make sure that all the appropriate adjustments are made and go to town on all those old photos. 

As for scanning documents you can experiment around with this as well. There are many OCR programs that will allow you to scan a JPEG image and extract the text from the document. (OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition) However, many of these programs might scramble your document a bit and you'll have to make quite a few adjustments. But it sure is easier than retyping large amounts of text. In many cases I have taken photos of documents and converted them to black and white and then made other necessary adjustments to be able to perform the OCR on them as well, with a lot more ease and transition. If you have more questions about this you can email me as well. It actually works pretty good and is a quick way to scan something when your not around your office. But if you're planning on stealing valuable and confidential information for profit or gains, I really don't want to know. Besides, I don't need the competition. ha ha.

So shoot/scan away and have fun, and save all those old photos before they fade away and are lost forever. 

Please email me if you find any of these tips useful or informative. 
Thanks 

 
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