Scanning photgraphs

[Grandpappy]

I've recently found some old photographs of my parents(sadly now deceased) and I want to scan them onto my hard drive in order to work on them.I'm using the scan function on my HP Photosmart C4280 and am not sure what settings to use to get the very best images. Most of the 5 photos are small, 2" square and all are damaged and scratched.They are of course black and white and taken during the 2nd. World War.
Once I get the best possible images the photos will then be stored and I can work on them - removing scratches,etc.

Any advice PLEASE

Thank you

[magicmerlin]

I would scan to the highest resolution the scanner can go upto.

Good luck.

If you have any more questions just submit an answer to this question, it keeps the thread going so others can see what was asked etc.

[gen2]

Firstly, although you say the prints are B&W do not use the B&W (greyscale) setting on the scanner or the results will look rather cold and unnatural. Monochrome prints generally have a colour bias away from pure greyscale. Use the full colour setting.

What scanning resolution you use will depend on what you finally want to do with them
600 dpi will give you more than enough for on-screen use or web uploads.
If you want high quality photographic reproduction prints then that final print should be 300dpi. (although acceptable prints can be achieved at half that figure)
eg to print a 5" square photo at 300 dpi = 1500 pixels per side (300 x 5). To get that from a 2" original you will have to scan at 750dpi (1500/2).

Another point to remember is that the higher the resolution you scan at, the more touching-up you will have to do as even the smallest speck will appear huge on screen.

Good luck.

[Old_Geezer]

You may even find that the size of your hard disk dictates how much resolution you choose to scan at :-)
I meant to scan all my parents' photos, but unfortunately didn't get around to it. Maybe one day.

[Vagrant]

Using the highest possible DPI setting may be counterproductive - there is no point scanning at a resolution much higher than the original document.
I have scanned old photos and got perfectly acceptable results at 300 DPI.
If you scan at say 9600 DPI, the scan will take forever, the resulting file will be enormous, and probably be too big for many photoediting applications to handle, and if it can be handled, will take ages to edit.
Do a test - scan 1 photo at 300, 600 then 1200 DPI.
Look at the file size produced.
Try editing each one.
Note the speed of the editor.
Try printing each one at double size.
I suspect you may possibly see a slight improvement by using 600, and no discernable improvement at 1200.
I doubt there will be any difference whatsoever above 1200 - assuming you print on the C4280, that has a maximum printing resolution of 1200.

[Grandpappy]

Many thanks to ALL who replied. I'm going to experiment and keep notes (on a piece of paper) of what I do to each photo,which in turn will now have it's own number.
I will be using Exif Pro and Photshop 7 to do the editing and will also keep a record of what I did with each photo & with which program.
I think I've got a lot of work ahead;but it should be enjoyable and there's no rush.
I shall post what I consider to be the best results and how I achieved them.

Thanks for now.

[scotman]

I agree with most of the postings above. Do some trials with various scan resolutions and see what happens. Also, save original scans as bitmap images and keep these. Take a copy for any editing practice and again do some experiments. When you have what you want you can save the edited versions as JPEG or similar to reduce file size.

[gen2]

I agree with 'scotsman' regarding NOT saving important image files in JPEG format as that uses a lossy compression algorithm.

However, bitmap files are HUGE. I prefer a lossless compressed format such as TIFF (LZW compression) which produces files a third to a quarter the size of a bitmap.

[magicmerlin]

If you use Photoshop for your editing, save as .psd files until you are happy with the end result. That way you will be able to edit all the layers.

If you save any edited images in jpg, bmp or tiff format all the layers/effects will be consolidated into one layer

[Grandpappy]

Thanks again to all of you. Some of the formats result in HUGE photographs( BMP & TIFF) but I'm having a lot of fun using PNG format at the moment(8pm Frid.) it seems a lot smaller files are created and it accepts lots of editing. So far,so good!
I shall update later
Cheers