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