Photo Scanning and Editing

Preservation Issues

Some points on size re scanning slides 

It has taken me some time but I think I have a workable method.
My mother left me some albums and lots of loose photos and then I have our own photos and slides and negatives. 
Unfortunately my mother did not always tell me WHO was in the photos and alas I have forgoten who some of them are 

Equipment:  Hewlett Packard Scanner HP 4470C with an XGA adapter for Slides and Photos 

Anyhow onto method for Photographs - I'll try slides and negatives later 

These methods are just concepts and I have not firmly decided every detail as yet

SAVING as TIFF or JPG

There is an excellent and detailed discussion at 

http://www.ekdahl.org/archiving_photo_images.htm

This extract is valuable

But the important thing to realise is that image deterioration only occurs **when you save as a jpg**. There is no quality penalty for changing formats from jpg to tiff: and the only quality loss is when you save as a new jpg file, e.g. converting tiff to jpg.

So the advice normally given is:

1 Shoot so that your camera either saves jpg or tiff, depending on your card capacity and quality requirements.
2 When editing, save intermediate files in TIFF as there is no loss of quality

However my own opinion is that "best jpg" is indistinguishable on paper from TIFF that I always save intermediate files in that format because of the lower file size. But no doubt others disagree... :-)

Further
Excellent work flow here and discusses saving working copies as Tif
http://www.rideau-info.com/genealogy/digital/workflow.html

Ron's Conclusion

When Scanning it is good to save at high res and ok in JPG. TIFF might fractionally be better but I am hearing that difficult to tell JPG from TIFF. Tiff costs a lot to store - so I am now thinking I will store as Jpg but when editting will first save as Tiff and then edit the Tiff file and then re-save as Jpg at the end.  

and the summary from above site

http://www.ekdahl.org/kurs/archiving_photo_images.htm

SCANNING 

1. try to sort by decades 
2. put a range of photos onto scanner 
3. at first I was using the scanner to crop and scan each one in turn
4. NOW scan the whole page in one go and save as  TIF
5. all I have read is that although TIF is large - it is best for use a master original - Jpg are the ones to use on the web but every time you adjust they lose some quality 
6. use a Name for the TIF like 1930crop2 - crop meaning I have to edit 
7. also Save same page as PDF and then turn over any photo with writing on the back and Save as 2nd page of PDF - PDF is good compression so in one small file I have a page to match the TIF and a page with some clues as to Who and When etc 
8. Take the photos off scanner and put in envelop or something that enables you to get back to 1930Crop2 if ever needed
9. You can continue with more scans until all done 
10. Or proceed to Edit 

Photo Examples here using Porta photo album

EDIT - Stage 1

1. Open the TIF with an editor ACDSee Photoshop Irfanview Picasa - whatever you like
2. now use the crop tool to grab a photo out of collection 
3. maybe leave an area around the photo as it may not be level
4. after the crop - use SAVE AS and rename the photo - don't overwrite the TIF with all the photos
5. with SAVE AS keep new photo as TIF and use a name like 1937grandma_C2 -  identify who etc is in photo and C2 for Crop2 so you can get back to original 
6. Keep this in same folder as original 
7. Now if the photo is not level - it is hard to place level on scanner  - use the editors rotate feature to move the image
8. This is not a 90 degree rotate - there should be a function to adjust by 1 or 2 degrees etc whatever makes it look good 
9. Straightening a photo is very nicely handled in Picasa 
10. now Crop to make a reasonable photograph - you always have the original master Crop to get it from again in the future
11. now see if you want to adjust exposure etc or clean up anything
12. Gamma is often good for this
13. I am not discussing major photo editting 
14. Save 

Edit Stage 2 - Caption using IPTC

1. Now creating JPG for photo albums and web pages and videos etc 
2. Save the Editted TIF as a JPG 
3. I am using Picasa which is Free from http://picasa.google.com/index.html
4. and Irfanview also free from  http://www.irfanview.com/
5. These 2 programs are brilliant and at an offer hard to refuse
6. Irfanview at moment is great for IPTC - 2007 I am starting to move to Xnview also Free
7. and Picasa is preferred for Web Albums and also as it indexes all my pictures - it does IPTC but the edit is difficult
8. IPTC is the ability to add a caption into the details of picture - and can be read by several different pieces of software
9. Anyhow I have found FREE software that works for me
10. In Irfanview when you have a JPG click - Image - Information and at the bottom is IPTC - keying two " i " will get you straight there
11. There is a large box to enter a Caption (other items also and I expect I will use those also)
12. Save the caption etc - Help says this Save will not lose any quality from JPG

October 2005 - I have found IPTCext at http://photothumb.com/IPTCExt/index.shtml 
This is shell - simply open properties on JPG and I can add captions - and all this is loseless to a JPG

Also PORTA http://www.stegmann.dk/mikkel/porta/ 
This is another simple tool - just click right on a folder and there is Porta on the options - it creates a web album - very simple. Edit Album has  a feature to put the IPTC sutff as a caption on the web page - absolute fantasttic - this is a fast program - Picasa2 is slow compared to this - BUT you have to tell Edut Album each time to get the IPTC stuff. You can also edit CSS templates to your own styles for the web pages - the styles Porta has anyway are excellent
Photo Examples here using Porta photo album and the Jave Script Simpleviewer is  brilliant - you just click bottom corner to advance to next image or other corner to go back.

3/2006 - deciding I like PORTA for web pages but want really to make video so folks can play on DVD into TV - 

Only way I can see after trying PROSHOW see below was that I would have to put the IPTC metadata onto a label with the image. 

Currently I think a left hand margin with the text rather than bottom of image - as most TV are wide rather than long and left sounds right to me

Verdana Font looks reasonable for this job

LABEL on the Photo - Irfanview 

1. If you want you can get that label into the body of the photo so the photo is tagged for all to see
2. Select an area on the photo - mouse click and create a box
3. Then Edit and Insert text into a box
4. You could type your own text or the IPTC caption
5. Click HELP in the text window and various options are availble
6. The straight forward IPTC caption is $120 not a piice a code in Irfanview
7. And there you have a Label
8. And you can use Batch to overlay text from IPTC fields- note Pixvue for batch update of IPTC 

LABEL underneath photo or alongside

1. Routine above only puts on top of photo image which kind of messes up the picture 
2. If you want as a separate footer etc I found that I could create a NEW image with a nice back ground and then paste the photo into it - ensure new is deeper than the original - this leaves a BOX at bottom onto which with InFraview you can add the Caption as above
3. I used ACDSee to create the box but other software should do this
4. 3/2006 irfanview has Canvas Size and a box can easily be added - also using batch

PICASA Album on Web - 3/2006 more into Porta 

1. In Picasa have a folder of jpg with IPTC captions - and you could use Picasa rather than Infraview
2. On the Library tag click create Web Page
3. I like the initial ones with grey background
4. Click to go forward
5. A web page with Thumbnails which you can click
6. and you will get a nice web page with the IPTC Caption above the Image
7. You can play with the web page templates and where you store them etc
8. NOTE: Picasa edit of Caption is difficult as bascially you have to delete and retype
9. Well when you have the web page with the captions - you simply copy the text from page and paste it into Notepad or something - edit it and then copy paste   back into Picasa so you have a new caption 

Phew lots more to sort out

This guy http://www.rideau-info.com/genealogy/digital/captioning.html has some good ideas but uses some paid software all the above are free

Some Album etc possibles

http://fotosaver.com/index.htm has its own Text descriptions but not IPTC it seems - BUT this might suit you

http://jalbum.net/index.jsp

http://www.through-the-lens.net/index.php?page=1

Making CDs 

Lula Bliley's Photo Album Read Me Page

Good stuff especially on Movies with Microsoft Photo Story and Movie Maker  http://www.papajohn.org/

Summary