Photo scanner: how to choose what to rely on

Nothing freshens memories like a photo. Just one look at the captured moments of strong emotional outbursts helps to restore the whole gamut of feelings experienced at that moment in memory. But unfortunately, digital cameras and cloud storage have become available quite recently. This means that most of the images that are dear to the heart age and fade in family photo albums, since paper and film tend to fade and get damaged. And the only available way to perpetuate them is digitization.

How to choose a scanner for a photo

Important! Ancient sickle, black-and-white photographs that do not lose their relevance, color frames striking with the depth of colors - each image option requires a careful approach to creating a digital duplicate.

Only professional equipment can work equally well with all types of photos. Its cost makes the purchase of such powerful scanners inappropriate for digitizing a couple of dozen frames - with so many images, it is better to contact specialized specialists. When it comes to hundreds of moments captured in the lens, it will not be amiss to know the basics of digitization.

What is the peculiarity of photo scanning

Important! Before proceeding with the selection of such expensive equipment, you should decide on the purpose of scanning.

Most often, photos are digitized for:

• restoration of old photographs;
• their universal storage;
• increase in size;
• copying;
• posting on the Internet;
• shipments.

The first three tasks require equipment with high resolution and maximum color depth. The second rather needs to focus on the speed of the procedure. But to digitize the film, most likely, you need a scanner that can cope with all of the above tasks.

Important! Work with the film has its own specifics, since quite often it is associated with the need to eliminate minor damage characteristic of such a fragile information carrier.

What criteria to choose

The first item is the type of scanner. Tablet options are the most versatile, so for the home it is best to choose just such a model. Since the photo format rarely exceeds the size of a standard A4 sheet, attention to this point can not be focused. But the auto-feed option can facilitate the processing of film or a large number of one-dimensional images.

Important! Consideration should be given to supported operating systems. There are three of them: Windows, MacOS and Linux. On which computer is running, the same should be indicated in the scanner passport.

As for the permit, it can always be adjusted in the right direction if the equipment was purchased with a margin. For home use, the recommended values ​​range from 600 to 1200 dpi, but photo editors are better to purchase equipment with an indicator of 2 thousand. dpi

If we are talking about color depth, then 24 bits are enough for a household scanner, but specialists will need 48 bits. A significant role is played by the type of sensor:

• CCD guarantees sharpness, color accuracy and the overall quality of digital copies, but is quite expensive and requires a careful attitude;
• CIS is cheaper, less energy intensive and faster, but low depth of field often leads to loss of quality;
• LiDE is the arithmetic mean of the previous two types.

When working with photographs, you often have to find a compromise between the quality and size of the digital copy. Therefore, you should be aware that the supported TIFF format is indispensable for digitizing images with a large number of shades, and the more common JPG is focused on obtaining photos of moderate sizes.

Listed below are the key features of photo scanners. Often, a number of additional options are combined with them, such as the ability to directly send copies to a network attached storage or their auto-processing with the elimination of defects. Each of these improvements requires a skeptical approach to the question of its necessity, since they significantly affect the total cost of equipment, but often turn out to be redundant.