Friday, June 6, 2008

Digital Scrapping with Non-Digital Photos

I had a question regarding how I used my non-digital photos to create my wedding book. I thought perhaps others may be curious as well, so here's my response.

I tried scanning old photos a couple years ago with an album I did for my Grandparents. But I really thought the scanned images came back grainy and low quality -- not to mention it took FOREVER to do!

I discovered then that photographing them with my digital camera worked much better. So when I want to "scan" non-digital pictures in, here's what I do:

1) Find a window in my house with a nice sunbeam coming in
2) Set the photograph in that sunbeam -- perfect indirect light
3) Turn off my camera's flash
4) Turn on my camera's macro setting
5) Snap away

I usually take a few photos of it, because sometimes it doesn't focus quite right. But if you're good with your manual settings (I'm not), you may be able to correct that yourself.

5 comments:

makeyesup said...

Wow, I have to try this. Have never been to fond of the results of the scanning. And I do treasure the few old photos that I have. Thanks for this.

Tina B. said...

I have been doing this also; taking pictures of pictures, which my family thinks is totally odd...LOL but I have not tried the macro setting...thanks for that piece of advice!!!!

Unknown said...

I have recently started doing this myself. Just haven't found the right window(s) yet. But one day ;)

Anonymous said...

Wow..I was thinking since I bought a scanner, would be able to put my old photos on the computer easily. Thank for the info, I will def try your way, probably faster than scanning each photo anyways. :)

Bonnie said...

This suggestion makes so much sense. I can't believe I never thought of it before. I have scanned photos, but I'm never pleased with how they turn out. Thanks for the great advice.