As the years go by, you’ll notice that you’re accumulating an increasing number of photographs that you may not have time to organize into albums.  You may even notice that many of them are still in the envelopes from the developers.  If this is your problem, then photo scanning can help you.  Photo scanning involves converting photographs into a digital format then editing them into a video slideshow that can be viewed on a DVD or CD player or a PC.  And like a regular DVD or CD, a menu can be included that will allow you to access individual pictures.

Digitizing also covers negative scanning and slide scanning, meaning you don’t need hard copy photographs to be able to avail photo scanning. Digitizing ensures that copies of the images will exist for future generations even if the originals degrade with age.

Before selecting a photo scanner, negative scanner or slide scanner or the services of a professional scanning service, you will have to organize the photos first in the way you would like them to appear on the DVD or CD.  Although you can organize them chronologically- in the order they were taken- it might be better if you organize them by theme.  For example birthday parties or anniversaries.  Before you scan them or send them off for photo scanning or slide scanning, make sure you number them to avoid confusion but use pencil not ball pens or sign pens to avoid accidentally marring the photos.  For negative scanning, make sure to include a list so that the negatives will be scanned in order.

Photo scanning equipment can be purchased from computer equipment or digital photography stores.  Photo scanning equipment can also be purchased from electronic equipment sellers over the Internet.  If you don’t have the time or interest in scanning your own photos you can consider professional photo scanning services.  They usually charge per scan and offer packages where the more photos you scan, the more affordable the fee.  Depending on the package, you may also be able to include custom features for your DVD or CD such as the addition of a musical background and titles for the slide-show, as well as additional services such as removing dust from the image, slight color correction and improvement of brightness and contrast.  You can also usually get a discount on photo scanning, slide scanning or negative scanning services if the items have already been scanned and the service just has to provide editing.

When selecting a photo scanning, negative scanning or slide scanning service, there are a number of things you should look out for.  First, does their negative scanning or slide scanning service scan all the film types in your collection?  Second, what file format will the items will be saved as?  The most common file formats for digitizing photos is JPEG or TIFF.  These formats will produce a better-quality image although file sizes are larger, take longer to process and will have to be stored in additional disks; depending on your needs you might want to find a service that will either allow you to select the file format or provide you with both formats.  Finally, what is the range of services they can offer you?  Will they offer customized services depending on your needs and your budget?

Finding the right scanning service ensures that your grandchildren can easily view photos of grandma and grandpa from way back when in the most convenient format possible.

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