Quick Tips for Digitising Your Old Photos

August 7, 2015
August 7, 2015 Theo Brainin

Quick Tips for Digitising Your Old Photos

Quick Tips for Digitising Your Old Photos

We know where all of your cherished memories are hiding…in dusty old boxes at the back of your closet! The task of organising, digitising and archiving your old photos can seem like an overwhelming, never-ending job, but luckily there are lots of options out there today to help you get started before any of your treasured collection is gone for good. Accidents and ageing can and will happen! Use our tips below to get started digitising your old photos so they can be easily shared for many years to come.

First, start organising…

1. Before you get to the actual business of scanning your pictures, make sure to go through and dust them off with a gentle microfiber cloth to ensure a clean scan. This is important to do regardless of what scanning method you choose as dust can affect the quality of your scanned images!

2. To make organising the digital copies later an easier task, try to get your photos into an order that works for you – whether it be by date, subject or location, make sure you don’t have to spend hours moving files around to make sense of your new digital collection. Don’t be too put off by this part of the job, make it into a fun occasion by asking friends or family to help. You’ll probably end up sharing stories about the pictures!

Next, choose your method for digitising…

3. Easiest approach: download a scanner app such as DocScan and Tinyscan. They make it easy to use your own phone to quickly scan photos and turn them into digital copies. What you sacrifice in quality will be made up for in convenience so try this method if you’re pressed for time or cash. At least now you’ll have a backup copy until you can try another method.

Do-it-yourself approach: invest in a home scanner and do the job right from home. There are a number of high quality scanners on the market now that come at a high price but keep your photos and the project safely in your hands.

Professional approach: consider outsourcing this time consuming and potentially costly project. There are several businesses now that will gladly take your old shoe box stuffed with photos and digitise them all! Local London business, Vintage Photo Lab, is a great example of a company that offers full service photo digitisation (collection, digitisation and return).

6. You can always look for a copy shop in your area that can scan or restore all of your old pictures at 600dpi in no time!

Last but not least, organising…

7. Archiving all of your newly digitised material, if you’ve scanned them yourself, is the next step and can easily be done via sites like Shutterfly which allows users to upload an unlimited amount of photos to store. Other sites also offer this service but limit storage space so search the Internet to compare pricing and storage capacity.

The fun part, sharing…

8. Finally, send your old photos to friends and family far and wide. They’ll love getting the chance to see the pre-social media era memories you share!

However you choose to digitise your photo collection, get started now!

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