How to Properly Scan a Photograph – from How-To Geek
How To Properly Scan a Photograph (And Get An Even Better Image)
Somewhere in your home, there’s a box of old analog photographs you probably want digital copies of. Unless you know how to use your scanner correctly, the image quality can turn out poor. Here’s how to get the best results.
If your memories are important to you, then it’s worth taking the time to do them right. Today we’re going to look at the largely overlooked tools and methods that’ll give you the best possible quality out of a scan of a less than perfect photo. We’ll see how to make the most of the scanning software and how to use graphics programs to make the image look better than the original photograph. Keep reading!
Starting Out With the Basics: Windows Fax and Scan
Because every scanner driver is different, we’ll be starting out today with “Windows Fax and Scan,” a program included with Windows 7 that will scan for you even if you don’t have any other program to capture images. Once we’ve covered the basics here, we’ll take a look at the Epson Scan program that comes with most Epson scanners. This is a fairly common program and should give you an idea of the kind of fine tuning you can do with the software bundled with your scanner.
Windows Fax and Scan is a basic, stripped down program that will perform the most basic functions of scanning if you can’t get your scanner driver to work or haven’t installed it.
The program is a pretty basic one. We won’t insult your intelligence and tell you how to use the “Preview” and “Scan” buttons, as most things are fairly straightforward in this program.
Your options are pretty threadbare. 300 DPI is a good pixel density to scan at for printing. And while the difference between “Color” and “Grayscale” is obvious, keep in mind that “Black and White” is actually a single color mode. All edges will be jaggy, and no anti-aliasing is allowed. This is a good mode for scanning line drawings, but horrid for photos. Use color or grayscale for best results.
Modern scanners are very well engineered to replicate a good image straight out of the box. But there are several mistakes being made here. Let’s take a look.
Straightening photographs smears the pixels and can result in a loss of resolution, so scan your photographs square to the edge of the flatbed lip. In addition to this, since we’re going to learn about making adjustments pre-scan, we’re going to only scan one image at a time. It’s more or less impossible to properly adjust three images at a time. They’ll have drastically different shadows, highlights, and midtones—even the automatic adjustments made by the scanner will likely be more accurate if images are scanned one at a time.
(Author’s note: Not everyone is going to appreciate the difference in quality that requires scanning photos individually. If you’re not patient enough to do them one at a time, this how to may not be for you.)
Save your file in a lossless format. JPG is not ideal as it is lossy. TIFF or PNG are the best formats as they compress the image file without creating artifacts or destroying the image quality. If you can help it, only use JPG to email files, never to archive them.
Advanced Scanning: Using Your Scanner’s Driver
Usually, these drivers start out in a “Home,” “Basic,” or “Office” mode for beginners. The professional mode gives you more options and isn’t that intimidating.
There are a lot of various options, most of which will be okay set to default.
If you have the option to scan in 24bit color, it’s your best bet. Most graphics files are 24-bit color, so we’ll start there. You also likely have greater options for pixel density, although a photo scan higher than 300 DPI is almost a waste of your time. The exception to this is if you’re doing enlargements.
The basic preview and scan buttons work as normal here, so we will be skipping right to the more technical parts.
Here’s where it pays off—your scanner driver should have some buttons that adjust levels and saturation. Making these before the scan can greatly improve image quality.
The basic idea is this: you can scan with default settings and make big adjustments in Photoshop or GIMP. But those edits are destructive to the image. They basically take the information already inside the image and stretch and squeeze it, throwing away detail. When you make adjustments to a histogram before you scan, you begin with a full value range without any tones that have been tossed out by a graphics program. This is why it’s not a good idea to scan multiple images at once—making precise adjustments with the scanner driver is impossible with multiple photos in the scanner bed.
If you have no idea how to use tools like the levels tool in the scanner, you can brush up by reading about how to adjust contrast like a pro.
Again, save your file in a lossless format. JPG is lossy. Lossy is bad. TIFF or PNG are the best formats without creating artifacts or harming the image quality. Remember, never use JPG to archive or print images, only to email them or upload them. Printing from JPG will result in an inferior print compared to an original lossless PNG or TIFF.
Improving Scans With Photoshop (Or GIMP)
Photoshop, GIMP, or a comparable graphics program should be your last step in your scan. Here you can use tools like the “Selective Color” to make adjustments to repair problems with the original photograph that show up in the scan. You may want to “de-vintage” your images, using the Selective Color tool (in Photoshop: Image > Adjustments > Selective Color) and adjusting certain color and value ranges selectively.
In this example, you can see how we set our “colors” sample to “Blacks,” then increased black and removed some of the blue haze from the darks in the image. We can also use this same tool to adjust the apparent white balance of the image, removing the yellow cast in the highlights and midtones.
Another option is to open the file in Lightroom, RAW Therapee, or Adobe Camera Raw (shown above.) If you have Photoshop, you can open any photo in camera raw by going to File > Open As and opening your scan as a Raw file. This can allow you to set a more accurate white point than the Selective Color tool, and also allows you the wealth of fairly complex tools in Camera Raw (or other comparable programs.)
Lots of additional improvements can be made after the scan to make the image perfect. For help getting your image to look as good as possible, check out our previous how-tos on adjusting contrast like a pro, adjusting color like a pro, how to use a histogram, and how to use freeware Raw Therapee to adjust Raw files (as well as scans). You may also be interested in the easy How-to Geek method on removing dust and scratches from scans.
A sneak peek of Windows 8
Windows 8 is around the corner and the folks at Microsoft just released the “Windows 8 Consumer Preview”; this is a downloadable version of Windows 8 (with an expiration date of course) so tech enthusiasts can play with a functional demo. I personally downloaded the Developer’s version a while a go and it works really well, and the most important thing is they kept what works on Windows 7 intact… good for them!
If you want to know more visit the Windows Blog by clicking on the following link: The Windows Blog.
Share private information with others that self-destructs after first viewing. | OneShar.es
This is a very cool (and free) service that allows you to send sensitive information via a web link that can only be read once and it self destructs… click on the link below to know more:
Share private information with others that self-destructs after first viewing. | OneShar.es.
The Ultimate Mac Hard Drive Repair Tool [Humorous Image] – How-To Geek
Apple iPad plant conditions better than the norm: agency | Reuters
(Reuters) – Working conditions at Chinese manufacturing plants where Apple Inc’s iPads and iPhones are made are far better than those at garment factories or other facilities elsewhere in the country, according to the head of a non-profit agency investigating the plants.
The Fair Labor Association (FLA) is beginning a study of the working conditions of Apple’s top eight suppliers in China, following reports of worker suicides, a plant explosion and slave-like conditions at one of those suppliers, Foxconn Technology Group.
Auret van Heerden, president of the FLA offered no immediate conclusions on the working conditions, but he noted that boredom and alienation could have contributed to the stress that led some workers to take their own lives.
In addition to Foxconn, FLA investigators will later visit facilities of Quanta Computer Inc, Pegatron Corp, Wintek Corp and other suppliers, who are notoriously tight-lipped about their operations.
After his first visits to Foxconn, van Heerden said, “The facilities are first-class; the physical conditions are way, way above average of the norm.”
He spent the past several days visiting Foxconn plants to prepare for the study.
“I was very surprised when I walked onto the floor at Foxconn, how tranquil it is compared with a garment factory,” he said. “So the problems are not the intensity and burnout and pressure-cooker environment you have in a garment factory. . It’s more a function of monotony, of boredom, of alienation perhaps.”
He noted that the organization has been dealing with suicides in Chinese factories since the 1990s.
“You have lot of young people, coming from rural areas, away from families for the first time,” he said. “They’re taken from a rural into an industrial lifestyle, often quite an intense one, and that’s quite a shock to these young workers.
“And we find that they often need some kind of emotional support, and they can’t get it,” he added. Factories initially didn’t realize those workers needed emotional support.”
Van Heerden dismissed the notion that his organization might paint a cursory and positive picture of Apple’s suppliers.
Companies that join the FLA abide by rigorous commitments, and their interests are balanced by non-governmental organizations and more than 200 universities that sit on the board of the organization with the corporations, he said.
FLA evolved from a group originally convened by U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1996 with the goal of reducing sweatshop labor around the world. Its board includes executives from sneaker companies Nike and Adidas.
“Apple didn’t need to join the FLA,” he said. “The FLA system is very tough. It involves unannounced visits, complete access, public reporting.
“If Apple wanted to take the easy way out there were a whole host of options available to them,” he added. “The fact that they joined the FLA shows they were really serious about raising their game.”
RESPONSES ENTERED ON IPADS
Some 30 FLA staff members are visiting two Foxconn factories in Shenzhen in southern China and one in the central city of Chengdu. Each plant has about 100,000 workers, although not all work on Apple products.
Over three weeks, some 35,000 workers will be interviewed about 30 at a time to answer questions anonymously, entering their responses onto Apple iPads.
Questions will include:
* how the workers were hired
* if they were paid a fee
* if they were offered and signed contracts and whether they understood them
* the condition of their dorm rooms and food
* if complaints are acted upon
* their emotional well being
The data will be uploaded immediately and consolidated, and an interim report will be made public in early March.
The eventual FLA report will identify areas the suppliers need to improve and offer suggestions, van Heerden said.
“There might not be a clear policy on hiring, that could lead unwittingly to discrimination against hepatitis B sufferers,” he said as an example.
“There might not be adequate documentation that could lead to the risk that workers get hired with fake documentation, that underage workers come in . We can recommend very specific actions they can take.”
Apple opens up inspection of its Foxconn plants to Fair Labor Association — Engadget
This is the official press release:
Fair Labor Association Begins Inspections of Foxconn
CUPERTINO, California-February 13, 2012-Apple® today announced that the Fair Labor Association will conduct special voluntary audits of Apple’s final assembly suppliers, including Foxconn factories in Shenzhen and Chengdu, China, at Apple’s request. A team of labor rights experts led by FLA president Auret van Heerden began the first inspections Monday morning at the facility in Shenzhen known as Foxconn City.
“We believe that workers everywhere have the right to a safe and fair work environment, which is why we’ve asked the FLA to independently assess the performance of our largest suppliers,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “The inspections now underway are unprecedented in the electronics industry, both in scale and scope, and we appreciate the FLA agreeing to take the unusual step of identifying the factories in their reports.”
As part of its independent assessment, the FLA will interview thousands of employees about working and living conditions including health and safety, compensation, working hours and communication with management. The FLA’s team will inspect manufacturing areas, dormitories and other facilities, and will conduct an extensive review of documents related to procedures at all stages of employment.
Apple’s suppliers have pledged full cooperation with the FLA, offering unrestricted access to their operations. The FLA’s findings and recommendations from the first assessments will be posted in early March on its website, www.fairlabor.org. Similar inspections will be conducted at Quanta and Pegatron facilities later this Spring, and when completed, the FLA’s assessment will cover facilities where more than 90 percent of Apple products are assembled.
Apple has audited every final assembly factory in its supply chain each year since 2006, including more than 40 audits of Foxconn manufacturing and final assembly facilities. Details of Apple’s supplier responsibility program, including the results of more than 500 factory audits led by Apple throughout its supply chain over the past five years, are available at www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility.
In January, Apple became the first technology company admitted to the Fair Labor Association. The FLA conducts independent monitoring and verification to ensure that the FLA’s Workplace Standards are upheld wherever FLA company products are made.
Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.
Lenses for iPhone 4
If you are like me that is replacing your point-and-shoot camera for an iPhone, this article from Wired might interest you. They review few aftermarket lenses kits for the pro in you:
http://www.wired.com/reviews/2011/12/reviews_iphonelense_roundup/