Tips on Scanning and Writing a Family History

Some of the question's we get asked most often is how to scan and get the best possible scans.

Marlo has written an outstanding book to help you write your family history and also gives wonderful and very useful tips on scanning.

The Digital Family History Guidebook is easy to read and understand. Many photos and screen shots help walk you through each step of the process you are learning about.
You can find more information here. Digital Family Guidebook

Tips for getting the best quality scans. Scanning Checklist

• Turn on scanner.
• Place first photo at top right corner of scanner and align to corner guides.
• Start Heritage Collector Professional Software.
• Create collections. Collections can also be created while scanning.
• Click scanner Icon at top left in Professional software.
• Select scanner.
• Click Preview button in scanner software to see photo.
• Crop photo. Zoom in if necessary to make cropping easier.
• Do photo enhancements - contrast, brightness, saturation, etc.
• Set the target size to 8 X 10 inches (800 X 600 pixels).
• Select Dots per Inch (DPI) from 150 - 400 DPI.
• Finalize Scan (Click the scan button) Photo appears in Professional.
• Type in photo caption and / or description.
• Select Word Characteristics (optional).
• Change scanning date to an approximate photo date (optional).
• Enter GPS Coordinate if appropriate.
• Select appropriate file type.
• TIF - Color - Most universal (If you plan to do further enhancements to photo).
• PNG - Uncompressed creates much smaller than TIF and a good alternative to TIF.
• BMP - Color or black and white. Creates large file size even compressed.
• JPG - smaller size for e-mail or web. Degrades with repeated saving / enhancement.
• Select collection to store photo and click Accept button.
• Place next photo at top right of scanner.
• Click Scan button.

Here is a wonderful example of what you can find in the Guidebook:
Chapter 8 - Archiving and Preserving. Proper Care and Handling of CD/DVDs.

 

You can view a very useful movie tutorial on scanning.

 

 

Watching the Scanning Tutorial Here!

 

 

Thanks for stopping by! See you soon with more fun tips coming your way.
 

Heritage Collector Website

Using video clips with pictures!

Telling stories the fun way

Those of you that know me know I LOVE shooting video with my camera. It isn't uncommon to see me with my camera strap around my neck with my eyes always on the look out for that perfect moment to capture on my camera!

I love that I am able to directly import my photos and video clips all into one place. Heritage Collector. This is where I can organize and easily access my photos and video for easy sharing.

Now, I know it is  nearing the end of summer. But, I want to show you just how easy it is to take family vacation pictures such as these, and turn them into a story to share.

This was my first time taking all of my kiddos ice fishing. I'm not going to lie, I was a bit nervous until my sweet hubby kept reassuring me it was safe. Goodness, the ice was several feet thick!

When you look at this picture, you know very little about it. The only thing you know right off is that is was winter and cold outside.

What you probably didn't know was that we were ice fishing! You don't know my kids ages, how excited they were, and all the fun that happened that day.  You didn't even know they pulled each other around the ice on their sleds.

Since I do like to scrapbook (or as I like to call it, Storybooking) I created a basic page with all of my favorite pictures from this trip in Heritage Collector Storybook.

 

Adding Video Clips to photos and storybook pages

 

Now comes the fun part! As I mentioned in the beginning, I always take video along with still pictures anywhere I go. When you mouse over this picture, I tagged the video clip to it so it plays! 

This is a snip of the above picture with video added to it. Now, In my opinion you have a much better recipe for sharing a fun story your kids will love!

 

 

I must admit I have spoiled my kids. They think every picture or scrapbook page should have their audio or a video clip attached! Their excitement as they mouse over their pages is so rewarding.

 

The possibilities are endless here. Childs first steps picture AND video attached to each other. Wedding video's and pictures attached. You see where I am going with this.

 

Stop just saving your pictures. DO SOMETHING WITH THEM!!

We teach live online free classes on how to do this. And you will be so amazed at how easy this is with Heritage Collector!

You can learn more about Heritage Collector and how to do this, here.

FREE online Scanning class.

Scanning for Better Results

 It's easy when you know how - We are going to show you HOW!

Thursday, August 15th. 7:00 PM MDT

 

6:00 PM - Pacific
7-8:00 PM - Mountain
8-9:00 PM - Central
9-10:00 PM - Eastern

 

 

Sign up for the free class here!

Take your history to the next generation with Heritage Collector Suite.
Organize photos and information. Personalize and create interactive storybooks, talking calendars, slide shows and multimedia collections. Increase interest with photo labels, oral narrative and GPS maps. Share via cloud, self-running CD/DVDs or printing.    

 

Free Download of Heritage Collector Standard.
If you don't own a copy of Heritage Collector, download our Free Standard version Here!  Try out the software and come to the class with any questions you may have. Can't wait to see you there.