Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472, and today, I am conceptualizing a workflow for scanning the family photo trunk. Let’s get started!
I don’t have any hard figures, but I’m fairly sure that half the project is getting to the first definitive scan. It’s been a year now, and I have yet to save a single photo to disk, but at least I have answered most of the questions that need asking and have an idea for the remaining questions I still need to look up.
Dots Per Inch
Probably the single biggest unanswered question is what dpi to scan at. Everyone has a variation on the same answer: it depends. Zoom in close enough to any picture, and you run into the individual grains making up the image. Pictures with a slight blur have a more than fair share of redundant data here, so it’s okay to ease off on the disk space they’ll forever occupy. On the other extreme, it may be preferable to scan negatives near the grain threshold to mine out as much of the original content as possible.
The process of printing can only ever lose detail. The same goes for digital image manipulation. There is research into AI’s that can believably upscale an image, but once original detail is lost, it’s gone, and you’re left with purely guesswork. The worst case scenario is to find that all scans to date are low quality, and work on the payload needs to start over.
I hear good things about 600 dpi for general use. I’ll need to experiment for myself though, but I’ve come to think about it from both ends toward the middle. Start with how much detail you need to end up with and adjust for how big of an item you are scanning. You’ll can calculate the appropriate resolution to scan at from there, barring any of the above limitations cited in the above paragraphs.
File Format
My initial impulse was to go with PNG. It’s familiar, it’s lossless, but apparently it doesn’t come enabled by default. It’s grayed out it Image Scan! for Linux, but most software doesn’t even list it. If I want to continue down that path, I’ll need to either brute force a utility to scan it directly, or I will need a converter.
But PNG may not be the proper tool for the job. Digital archivists have been using the TIFF (interchangeably TIF) standard for longer: almost three and a half decades. Still, PNG has its merits. I do intend to put the archive online. TIFF apparently handles metadata more safely and more uniformly though, and metadata is something I intend to research further and learn to manipulate.
Workstation
Next, I’ll need to ask myself exactly what hardware/software I’ll be using. At present, I am most seriously considering scanning directly into GIMP and using a plugin or script to crop multiple pictures on a page at a time. Lightweight repairs should be possible on the spot, then the extracted photos can be saved to network storage.
I have two scanners at my disposal, I’m planning on driving one with my laptop. For the other, I’m considering experimenting with a Pi 4, though if that’s not powerful enough, I can always move a tower like Button Mash, my home Minecraft server, over to the project workspace to drive the second scanner.
My dream setup is to have one workstation controlling all the scanners using some kind of remote login software (to be researched). All parts should be in the same general area and be connected by hard wires and a switch, since I have the equipment.
Workflow
I’m including this section since it is important, but it’s also something that will get refined even after I start the scanning proper. Using two or more scanners, I can keep one or two people busy, even if the computers being used are a tad on the slow side. An organized directory acknowledging preexisting relationship of similar photos, such as an album or original sleeve, can address any automatic numbering schemes.
Pacing is another element here. Had I dedicated this entire blog to this project until I was done, I would have lost interest long ago. I don’t want to be scanning all alone, so I’ll need to coordinate schedules.
Digital repair is a fact of life in such projects because a microfiber cloth can only remove so much dust. Damaged photos that require special attention will need a way to be flagged or edited on the spot. On the whole, I believe the pictures have been well preserved, though we did find one torn photo to practice on.
Takeaway
I won’t pretend to be the definitive guide for digitizing your photo archive. To do the job properly, you may need to spend on reading materials or membership in a community like Scan Your Entire Life. A lot of my research this week came from what is freely accessible from his site, but key details are behind a pay wall. However: a prominent –but unofficial– theme of this blog is using the open-source model whenever possible, and as good as his stuff looks, I don’t have the funds to invest in a paid community.
Final Question
How long have you put off scanning your old family photos?