Digitising old photos

Most people have collections of old photos they want to preserve because they contain precious memories. Old photos are usually the first things people pack when they’re forced to leave their home in the event of catastrophes like fire and flooding.

Digitising old photos like this one, which was taken in the early 1920s, preserves them for future printing and makes them easy to share with family members.

The best way to make sure these memories are protected and kept safe throughout the years is to digitise them. Digitising also makes them easier to share and use in projects like family histories or personal recollections.

No matter how well they have been handled in the past, old photos will change over time so they won’t look as good as they did when they were originally taken. Fortunately, when done with care digitising can provide a way to bring them back to life. But there are a few issues you can expect to be confronted with.

How good the copies are will always depend upon the quality of the original. If you start with a high-quality image, regardless of whether it’s on film or a print, you can obtain a copy that is of similar quality. With the right original and the best copying process, you should be able to make large prints from snapshot-sized prints and 36 x 24 mm negatives or slides.

There are two ways to approach the copying process: you can re-photograph the original or you can scan it. We’ll look at the pros and cons of each in this article.

Re-photographing

Re-photographing is cheap if you only have a few old photos to copy because you can use your existing equipment. It’s even possible to copy photos with a smartphone, although smartphones will also copy all the blemishes on the photos themselves and if you want to make prints the results can be disappointing.

If you want to try smartphone copying, apps are available for iOS or Android devices. Google PhotoScan is quick and easy to use but only scans images at 72 pixels per inch, which is fine for displaying on a screen but too low for printing.

Nikon’s Film Digitising Adapter ES-2 is an easy-to-use film copier with carriers that hold a six-frame film strip or two mounted slides. (Source: Nikon.)

Digitising adapters for 35mm slides are available from most specialist camera shops and online retailers. The simplest ones are slide holders with a translucent backing that attach to the lens on a camera. They only work with lenses that can focus close enough but allow users to copy slides in digital format (JPEG, TIFF or the camera’s native raw file format) with the camera’s native resolution.

Few of the re-photographing options include features like dust and scratch removal and colour restoration. Factor in extra time for ‘cleaning up’ the copies to remove blemishes and correct off-colours.

How to do it

Remove framed originals from the frame. Torn prints may be repairable with tape on the back of the print to hold the pieces together but cracked originals will require post-capture editing. Get rid of loose dust and fibres with a soft brush (make-up brushes are ideal) or an air blower.

Make sure the original is evenly-lit with no reflections produced by directional lighting. Line up the camera so the edges of the original are parallel with the image frame and as close to it as practical to minimise background interference and maintain high resolution.

Steer clear of wide-angle lenses as they will introduce distortions; a 50mm or longer focal length is best. Set the ISO to a low value (100 or 200) and mount the camera on a tripod. Disable any in-camera sharpening settings.  Set the lens aperture to between f/5 and f/8 to reduce diffraction. Use the self-timer to trigger the exposure. Capture raw files for the best results.

Match resolution to end usage

Different usages have different scanning requirements, primarily with respect to resolution. Typical resolution settings for different applications are shown in the table below.

Application	Ideal Image Size (in pixels)	Resolution (in pixels/inch
For display on phones and tablets	1024 x 768 pixels	72-92 ppi
Viewing on TV and monitor screens	1920 x 1080 pixels	72-92 ppi
Printing to 15 x 10 cm	At least 2000 pixels wide	300 ppi
Printing to A4 size	At least 4000 pixels wide	300 ppi
Printing at A3 and A3+ size	4500-5500 pixels wide	250-300 ppi

When originals are small (e.g. 35mm film frames) and you want to make large prints from them you should scan at higher resolutions than those shown in this table. For a 36 x 24 mm film frame, scanning at 600 ppi will give you a two times enlargement potential, while if you want to make A4 sized prints from a 35mm slide you would need to scan it at a resolution of 2400 ppi. For an A3 print 4800 ppi would be required.

Scanning

Dedicated scanners come in various sizes, types and capabilities. Cheap film scanners are available for 35mm negatives and/or mounted slides but their resolution is likely to be quite low (typically under 5 megapixels) and they provide few (or no) adjustments. The scans are often saved directly to an SD card.

If your collection consists mainly of prints, you can probably start straight away with your existing home office equipment. Virtually any inkjet-based home and office multi-function printer/copier/scanner can be used to scan B&W and colour prints.

Any multi-function printer/copier/scanner can be used for scanning prints up to A4 size (B&W or colour) since they support most of the essential settings. (Source: Canon.)

Most scanners of this type will provide a range of output resolution settings and many will let you select the area you wish to scan. However, they won’t provide any in-built corrections. Black and white prints will usually scan well on a multi-function device, although the end result will depend on the quality of the original.

The original print was scanned on a basic multi-function printer/copier/scanner with the result shown in the top image. Roughly 15 minutes of work with the spot healing tool in an image editor to remove the blemishes followed by unsharp masking produced the end result shown in the lower image.

Scans made with these devices should be checked in an image editor so you can fix blemishes and bring them back to life. Colour prints will probably require post-scan editing to ‘restore’ faded colours.

Epson’s FastFoto FF-680W provides a fast way to scan large quantities of small prints automatically. (Source: Epson.)

Epson’s FastFoto FF-680W is designed for people with large collections of prints and provides fast, automated scanning at 300 ppi for snapshots, postcards, Polaroid photos and small panorama prints at a rate of approximately one photo per second. At $799 (RRP), it is worth the investment if you have lots of appropriately-sized originals and want copies that are the same size

Simple flatbed scanners are available in A4 size for scanning photo prints at higher resolutions as well as photos stuck in albums. If you want to enlarge the copies, scanning is the best method to use.

Most scanners include dust and scratch removal plus colour restoration functions and many will scan directly to Cloud and social media applications. Some include software for stitching together scans of artwork, photo albums and documents larger than the platen size.

A colour print scanned on a dedicated flatbed scanner. The top image shows the faded original, while the lower image shows the result of editing adjustments (Levels, Auto Tone, Auto Contrast and increases to Vibrance and Saturation) plus removal of marks with the spot healing brush. The white area in the lower right corner was cut off the original. It’s almost impossible to repair such damage.

A dedicated A4 size flatbed scanner with film scanning capabilities will be required when you want to scan any images on film; be they B&W or colour, negative or slide. These scanners have energy-efficient LED light sources in their covers and line arrays of CCD sensors below the platen to collect the image data. Resolutions range from 4800 x 9600 dpi to 6400 x 9600 dpi of optical resolution, with prices ranging from around $150 to $1400.

Most of these scanners come with holders for 35mm filmstrips, 35mm mounted slides and medium format film. Advanced dust/scratch removal and colour restoration is included.

How to do it

Regardless of whether you’re scanning prints or film, each original should be cleaned as thoroughly as possible before scanning to remove dust and fibres. A soft brush and/or compressed air blower are the best tools to use since they won’t damage the film.

Mould is more difficult to deal with and may not be removable without damaging the originals. Similarly, there’s not much you can do to repair physical damage. Negatives that have been cut are almost impossible to repair and will require extensive editing.

The driver interface for Epson scanners set up for scanning slides, showing the key functions highlighted in red. The red arrow shows the ‘editing’ functions provided by the scanner software.

It’s important to use the correct scanner settings, starting with separating prints and film since they require different light sources. Images on film must be split into positive (‘reversal’ or ‘transparency’) and negative since the latter requires an additional processing step to convert the hues and tones into a ‘normal’ image.

B&W originals can be scanned with either the colour or the greyscale mode. The colour mode will collect more data, providing more flexibility to manipulate the image. You can change it back to greyscale after scanning. Sepia-toned originals should always be scanned in colour.

A slide taken of demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, in May 1989 before the military action. The top image shows the original scan, which has retained much of its colour. The lower image is after editing adjustments and spot removal. Images like this are worth preserving for their historical value.

While the software settings provided by the scanner driver will go part-way towards giving you usable images, don’t expect them to deliver scans that replicate the original image when it was shot. Colour images will fade over time and different colour layers will fade differently; B&W originals will lose contrast and may lose resolution. Film can also be degraded by mould. Expect to spend time ‘finishing’ your scans before you obtain usable images.

Finishing touches

Regardless of whether your scanner comes with ‘cleaning up’ tools, you still need to put finishing touches to virtually all of your scanned images. The process needn’t take a lot of time if you know which tools to use and how to use them. Before committing to a scan, always ‘preview’ or ‘pre-scan’ to check what the end result will look like.

Older originals are likely to require a fair bit of restoration editing. How much will depend upon how well the originals have been stored.

The spot healing and cloning tools are your best choices for removing blemishes. If you need to adjust the colour balance, editors that provide separate adjustments for highlights, midtones and shadows provide greater flexibility. Apply unsharp masking at the end of the editing.

This set of images shows an original slide (top image) that has suffered from colour fading and mould. The second image shows the scan after Levels, Auto Tone, Auto Contrast and Auto Colour adjustments. The area of mould is in a part of the image that contributes nothing so it’s easy to crop it off. Remaining spots can then be corrected with the spot healing brush.

Article by Margaret Brown (Excerpt from Photo Review Issue 87)

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