- Best Way To Scan Photos On Mac Os
- Best Way To Scan Photos On Macbook Pro
- Mac Scan To Pdf
- Hp Easy Scan On Mac
Scanning photos to your computer is a very good idea. Converting your precious print photos to digital is a little time consuming, but totally worth it. It is such a relief knowing your printed photos are backed up on the computer. The BEST way to scan old pictures is actually to use your DSLR camera or smart phone camera to do it. Find and identify photos of people using Photos on Mac. When you first open Photos, it scans your library to identify people in your photos. After the scan is done, you can open the People album, view photos organized by the faces in them, and assign names to the people Photos found. The BEST way to scan old pictures is actually to use your DSLR camera or smart phone camera to do it. Advancements in DSLR and iPhone or Android phone technology allow you to get a much higher resolution 'scan' by just simply taking a picture.
Old photos are fun because they bring back lots of memories. It's funny how we mostly remember the good things about past memories. Memories are the primary motivation for me to go back into my old childhood photos and scan some and make them digital. I have hundreds of photos from when I was a child, mostly black and white. Even though I would like to scan all of them, I usually pick a few to scan and then forget about it for a while. However, learning how to scan and organize old photos is mostly the same as organizing current digital photos. I follow the same system I use with all my pictures with one important difference. Read on to learn how to scan and organize old photos.
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Before diving into a large project for scanning your large pile of old photos, take some time to understand the entire process. Planning a little bit beforehand, will help you along the way as the process of scanning large quantities of photos is both time consuming and tedious. Read along so you can prepare and then actually scan and organize your old photos efficiently, so you can simply enjoy them.
In addition to being capable and powerful, the best duplicate photo finder for Mac should also be easy to use. Scan speed: When you use a duplicate photo finder to scan your Mac for duplicate photos, a fast scan speed can provide great efficiency. Flexibility to customize: It should let users have enough control over the scan and removal process. Ever thought 'there must be an easier way to scan documents on a Mac?' Well, it's easier than you think and the best software to do it comes with your comput.
1. What is Missing from Scanned Photos?
Unlike current digital photos produced by a digital camera, scanned photos do not contain any information about when the photos were taken, there are no tags or keywords and certainly no geo-tags.
The most challenging aspect about organizing scanned photos is the fact that scanned photos are missing photo metadata.
In terms of metadata, scanned photos are dead unless you learn to find and capture any photo metadata outside of the photos themselves.
2. Find and Capture Photo Metadata for Scanned Photos
Fortunately, there are three possible sources for gathering metadata for your old scanned photos.
On occasion you can find metadata on the back of old photos written with a pencil. It might be fading away and hard to decipher but that is lucky metadata left by an organized family member long time ago.
Secondly is an old family member with all the metadata in their head. My best source of metadata for old family photos is my 94 years old grandmother. I can show her pretty much any old photo and she tells me the event , a pretty close date and who is in the photo.
The third source of metadata for scanned photos is yourself. Whatever you can remember or whatever you can guess from your old photos is all you have.
3. Scan Old Photos in Groups Related to the Same Time Period
My wife and I have quite a few old pictures of our families: parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins…you get the picture…I have a large family with lots of old photos.
The best way to approach the organization of these scanned pictures is to group them by approximate time…I mean large approximation since for many old pictures we do not have any dates unless something written on the back.
I usually pick a group of pictures that have to do with similar time period. And I mean roughly similar…more like: 'these are pictures from the 70s and these are pictures from 80s'. Unless you have more clues written on the back of your pictures (or somewhere else), it's really hard to determine the date and place of an old picture. Unless of course you have a grandmother that remembers every detail about every old picture.
Sometimes the content of the pictures triggers memories that help me remember more details about the date and place, but those pictures are not too many. When I run into pictures from a particular event, I put them all together in a folder and create a precise folder name (Read How should you name your folders?)
4. Create Efficient Folders for Scanned Photos
I place all my newly scanned photos in the TRANSFER folder and I process them just like new photos I just transferred from my camera.
Then I create folders for scanned photos just like I would create folders for current photos. The only difference is that I place them in the higher level folder called VLAD
. My wife's old pictures when she was a child I place in her own folder where I create similar folders for the years.
As you know, I place all my current photos in the FAMILY
folder.
So my folder structure looks like this.
You may choose another name for your high level folder for scanned photos. You may call it OLD-PHOTOS or you may simply choose to put your old photos in the FAMILY folder along with all your current photos.
5. Group Photos by Long Time Spans
The fact that you don't know the time and circumstances of these old photos will force you to group them generically by long time spans. Make this grouping before you start scanning. Analyze your piles of old photos, and divide them in groups of long time spans.
This is the most important and challenging difference between scanned photos and current digital photos.
Other than that, you treat scanned photos like any other digital photo you take with you camera or phone.
Can You Scan and Organize Old Photos Efficiently?
With some preparation and realistic expectations, I believe you can have a lot of fun scanning your old photos. There are lots of memories that these old photos bring. So, arm yourself with patience and perseverance, and bring your history to life by making all your old photos available to share on modern platforms.
What do you think? Have you found another helpful way to group old scanned pictures?
Essentials for organizing your digital photos
Here are the essential products and services I have come to rely on for many years to keep my media collection organized and safe. Even though these are affiliate links, I wholeheartedly recommend them.Excellent Lightroom and Picasa alternative. If you're looking for a cheaper and simpler photo manager then ACDSee Photo Studio for Mac(70% off until November 18, 2020) or ACDSee Pro for Windows(20% off Lifetime License until November 18, 2020) is my preferred solution for organizing your media on your computer. It has a very fast browser, beautiful image editing capabilities and you don't work with catalogs at all.
If you do a lot of image editing like I do, I recommend using Adobe Lightroom Classic CC via the annual Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. Lightroom has excellent photo editing capabilities. Yes, Lightroom has a steeper learning curve as you have to learn to keep your catalogs in sync with your hard drive. But if you do image editing, Adobe Lightroom is my favorite.
I recommend Backblaze Cloud Backup for affordable & reliable unlimited cloud backup. I have been using Backblaze for backing up all pictures & videos for more than 4 years now. All my invaluable digital memories are safe and secure.
In addition, make sure you have an inexpensive and reliable external hard drive for backing everything up. It is absolutely essential for backing up your media regularly.
Start organizing now using detailed, step-by-step instructions and videos:
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Most people want to just organize their digital pictures and ignore these crucial steps right at the beginning..when they are shooting and transferring their digital pictures. Then they wonder why they can't organize their digital photos! Avoid most people's mistakes and start on the right track!
As the world keeps becoming more digital, the idea of saving pictures in photo albums is gradually becoming old fashioned. This is because with the growing usage of smartphones it is easier to save photos on them digitally.
Do you wish you could share your old picture in digital formats? This just got easier as with the great negative scanners this is achievable. Negative film scanners are devices that can help you convert your pictures into digital formats.
However, getting to choose the best negative scanners to buy can be a difficult challenge. To make it easy for you, we have reviewed the Best Negative scanners in 2020 to guide you in buying.
Best Negative Scanners 2020
Plustek OpticFilm 8200i
The Plustek OpticFilm 8200i is a powerful scanner having a resolution of 7200 dpi. It comes with a sharp optical system that makes it capable of producing brilliant detail in shadow areas. Also, it offers a great tone and color range.
Furthermore, it has a built-in infrared channel that helps users to remove dust and scratches on original negatives and slides without extra post-processing.
In addition, it features an IT 8 calibration slide, which assists in the delivery of clear and accurate colors having quite a number of in-depth detailing.
Pros
- 7200 dpi resolution
- Powerful and Fast.
- Accurate tone and color range
- built-in infrared channel
- Works with Mac and PC.
Cons
- Software and drive issues.
Price: View on Amazon
Nikon CoolScan VLS-50 ED
This scanner which is compatible with both Windows and Mac comes with a 4,000 dpi optical resolution having a scan speed of about 38 seconds. Also, it has a 4.2 density, 14-bit A/D conversion, a digital ICE4 advanced suite for innovative image correction technologies, 8 or 16-bit output, as well as an updated USB interface.
In addition, the Nikon CoolScan VLS-50 ED offers you high quality 35mm slide scanning, APS film scanning with its optional IX240 film adapter. It is also worth mentioning that it gives an easy 35mm film strip scanning and prepared slide scanning with the optional medical slide holder.
Pros
- Premium build quality
- Fast
- LED illumination
- Advanced image correction
- User-friendly operation.
Cons
- No monochrome presets
Price: View on Amazon
Epson Perfection V600
Do you wish you could share your old picture in digital formats? This just got easier as with the great negative scanners this is achievable. Negative film scanners are devices that can help you convert your pictures into digital formats.
However, getting to choose the best negative scanners to buy can be a difficult challenge. To make it easy for you, we have reviewed the Best Negative scanners in 2020 to guide you in buying.
Best Negative Scanners 2020
Plustek OpticFilm 8200i
The Plustek OpticFilm 8200i is a powerful scanner having a resolution of 7200 dpi. It comes with a sharp optical system that makes it capable of producing brilliant detail in shadow areas. Also, it offers a great tone and color range.
Furthermore, it has a built-in infrared channel that helps users to remove dust and scratches on original negatives and slides without extra post-processing.
In addition, it features an IT 8 calibration slide, which assists in the delivery of clear and accurate colors having quite a number of in-depth detailing.
Pros
- 7200 dpi resolution
- Powerful and Fast.
- Accurate tone and color range
- built-in infrared channel
- Works with Mac and PC.
Cons
- Software and drive issues.
Price: View on Amazon
Nikon CoolScan VLS-50 ED
This scanner which is compatible with both Windows and Mac comes with a 4,000 dpi optical resolution having a scan speed of about 38 seconds. Also, it has a 4.2 density, 14-bit A/D conversion, a digital ICE4 advanced suite for innovative image correction technologies, 8 or 16-bit output, as well as an updated USB interface.
In addition, the Nikon CoolScan VLS-50 ED offers you high quality 35mm slide scanning, APS film scanning with its optional IX240 film adapter. It is also worth mentioning that it gives an easy 35mm film strip scanning and prepared slide scanning with the optional medical slide holder.
Pros
- Premium build quality
- Fast
- LED illumination
- Advanced image correction
- User-friendly operation.
Cons
- No monochrome presets
Price: View on Amazon
Epson Perfection V600
The Epson Perfection V600 is a great scanner for scanning not just negatives but also images, documents, and film. It comes with the DigitalICE restoration and editing software which lets you make everything look almost like new and help to remove water stains, tears, and scratches from old pictures.
In addition, it features the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software that allows the conversion of scanned documents into editable text. Also, it allows the creating of enlargements from your film strips reaching up to 17 x 22 inches at a superb 6400 x 9600 dpi.
Pros
- Good price
- Ideal for home and office use.
- Magnifies well.
- Lots of user features.
Cons
- It is slow.
- Takes time to learn.
Price: View on Amazon
Pacific Image PrimeFilm XE Scanner
If you are looking for a negative scanner with a great resolution, then the Pacific Image PrimeFilm XE Scanner is just ideal for you. This scanner designed to scan 35mm negative film strips and transparencies at an amazing 10,000 x 10,000 dpi.
Also, this scanner makes it possible to get enlargements at a rate of up to 48 x 32 inches at 300 dpi. Additionally, it has a USB 2.0 port for fast data transfer and computer connectivity. It is also worth mentioning, that this scanner is compatible with both Windows and Mac OS and also scans negatives at a range from 63 seconds at 3600 dpi to 91 seconds at 7200 dpi.
Pros
- It is Fast.
- Impressive resolution.
- Built-in processing features.
- Cross-platform compatibility.
Cons
- Hard to repair.
- Tray issues.
Price: View on Amazon
Wolverine Titan
The Wolverine Titan scanner conveniently scans in stacks of 35mm photos and archives, regular 8mm, and super 8 movies for quick digital conversion and sharing. This device is designed with both Mac and Windows OS compatibility. In addition, it can connect to a television or other digital monitors as well.
It is user friendly and comes with a digital JPEG conversion feature, which helps you to digitally convert everything you need. Also, this device processes 20-megapixel digital images within seconds, and saves all images into the internal memory or directly to an optional SD/SDHC memory card.
Pros
- Easy to use.
- Quick scans.
- Share images to TV or monitors.
- USB and HDMI.
Best Way To Scan Photos On Mac Os
Cons
- No editing, or color correcting feature.
- Low-quality images.
Price: View on Amazon
Kodak Scanza
The Scanza is a device that converts film to JPEG digitals in seconds. It also optimizes all sorts of photographic film formats as well as scan 35mm, Super 8, and 8mm negatives. In addition, scanned files can be transferred to both Windows and Mac.
Furthermore, this scanner comes with a built-in full-color LCD display system, several film adapters, and inserts, as also an easy to use operating system and interface too.
Pros
- Built-in LCD display
- Easy to use.
- Scans quickly.
Cons
- Small display.
- Non-professional.
Price: View on Amazon
Jumbl 22MP All-in-1r
The Jumbl 22MP All-in-1r scanner digitally converts 35mm slides & negatives, as well as super 8 slides and negatives. Also, it stores film to its internal memory or to an optional internal memory card.
This device comes with a 2.4-inch built-in color LCD display, support for monitor or TV connectivity and is compatible with both Windows and Mac OS. Furthermore, this scanner package comes with 1 Negative Adapter, 1 Digital Scanner, 1 Slide Adapter, 1 Super 8 Insert, 1 110 Insert, 1 USB Cable, 1 TV Cable, as well as 1 Cleaning Brush.
Pros
- Easy to use.
- 4-inch LCD screen.
- JPEG conversion feature.
Cons
- Low quality.
Price: View on Amazon
DigitNow – 135 Film Negative Scanner
The DigitNow scans 35mm film and displays images through a tiny LCD screen on the top. Also, it has an adjustable rapid slide feeder which allows you digitize film into JPEG images.
In addition, it comes with a TV/Video output for easy viewing and a USB 2.0 interface. This device is designed to be both Windows and Mac OS compatible. It is also worth mentioning that it has the capability to convert physical 35mm film to JPEG images with little effort.
Pros
- Scans easily.
- Converts to JPEG.
Cons
Best Way To Scan Photos On Macbook Pro
- Low-quality resolution.
- Small LCD screen.
Mac Scan To Pdf
Price: View on Amazon
Zonoz FS-3
This is an easy to use scanner that is suitable for amateur photographers or anyone who wants to view their old 35mm film strips. This device converts everything to a usable digital format, scans 110, 126 film slides, 35mm film rolls, and slides as well as negatives + Super 8 Film.
In addition, it has a resolution output of 22MP, is compatible with memory cards of up to 32GB and comes with a feature that helps to increase the brightness and resolution of images directly on the device.
Pros
- Scans several Film Formats.
- Resolution and brightness features.
- Requires no software.
- Easy sharing.
Cons
- Image may need adjustment before use.
Hp Easy Scan On Mac
Price: View on Amazon How to install python on mac.
Sharper Image Slide and Negative Converter
The Sharper Image Slide and Negative Converter comes with a 14MP CMOS sensor having a LED design interface. Also, it is equipped with a built-in 2.4-inch color screen which allows viewing of images as you go as well as adjust color balance and exposure easily.
In addition, it converts black and white as well as color 35mm film slide to a JPEG format features a 4GB SD memory card and is compatible with both Windows and Mac OS. Also, it supports playing image slideshows on its LCD screen or by connecting to a TV.
Pros
- Slideshow playback.
- Adjustable settings.
- Quality processing.
- Includes SD card.
Cons
- Resolution is low.
Price: View on Amazon