Photo Restoration Tutorial: Top 10 Scanning Tips

1. Spend more than $100 on a new scanner. You get what you pay for.
   


2. If you have a lot of 35mm film/slides to scan don't expect great results from a flatbed scanner. A dedicated film scanner will do a considerably better job.
   


3. No amount of retouching can make up for a poor scan, so don't be afraid to scan a second time.
   


4. Scan at an appropriate resolution. 300ppi if you plan on printing your restored photo at the same size as the original, 600ppi if you plan to enlarge it. Also scan at 300ppi even if you plan to resize to 72ppi for web use later.
   


5. Crop your preview scan so as not to include any of the background/mount/border in the scan area. I will throw the level reading off.
   


6. Always scan black and white photos as 24bit RBG Colour and not greyscale. 24bit files have 3 times the colour depth of an 8 bit greyscale file and so capture much more tonal subtlety. If your photo is badly faded you might want to scan at 48bit then adjust the levels before returning to 24bit mode.
   


7. Photos printed on textured or embossed paper are generally not suitable for scanning. Try photographing them with a digital camera instead.
   


8. Always save your scans in a lossless format like TIFF. Only ever use JPEG as a final, save-once format.
   


9. Always view your scanned images at 100% when assessing them on screen.
   


10. Right-click your scanned files, choose Properties>General and check the "Read Only" box so you can't accidently save over them.

Do you have a favourite scanning tip? Why not share it with us.

-Mark