Tag Archives: Preserve

How Can I Preserve My Photographic Memories? : Photographic Memory

Article by Calandra Wright

Many of our fondest memories are stored in the photos we took and preserved. Formerly we were told to preserve not only the picture but also the negative; then other prints could be made. Most youth today don’t even know what a negative is! So what is the best way to preserve those digital memories?

First, don’t be shy about taking plenty of pictures. Since it doesn’t cost any more to take extra pictures, take many more than you want to keep. I recently purchased a 4 gig card for a new camera, in anticipation of a trip to visit friends and relatives. When I got home, it still said I could take another 10,000 pictures without running out of memory!

After collecting your numerous pictures, delete the ones that are not clear, exposure is wrong, people are frowning or in the shadows, or duplicates. You don’t have to keep every one. On the other hand, don’t be shy about keeping one that is special, though it isn’t your best shot. It doesn’t cost any more to keep it.

Photo albums can be set up with computer programs cataloging them by event, date, subject, or any way you want. Be sure to identify each picture clearly. My basement shelf contains a box of slides from my deceased parents but I don’t know the subjects. This frustration can be eliminated by adequate labels.

At this point you may feel you are done with your project. Yet, consider how fragile your preserved memories are. One crash of your hard drive and you may lose everything! Or if you have them on floppies, the media may be obsolete and they are as good as erased! Further, the presence of a random magnetic field could likewise destroy them.

Formerly we thought CDs were more secure. Nothing touched the surface so nothing needed to wear out. However, scratches, breaks, heat damage could all destroy your memories.

Start with this suggestion: store all your pictures additionally in another place and on copies in other parts of your home. That is, if you put them on a CD, make copies and store at least one copy in another home, at work, in a safety deposit box. Be sure to back up your hard drives and, if possible, subscribe to a service that backs up your data on a server somewhere else. As media changes, backup your memories on the new media. If all your pictures were on 5

Photographic Memory : Photo Scanning – The Best Way to Preserve Your Prized Photographs!

Article by Henrich Rault

You go looking for your old photographs stored in a shoebox in the attic and what do you find? Prized photos glued together. Prying them apart will destroy the images and you’d have lost your photographic memories for good.

So how do you prevent your photos from curling with mold and bonding together from damp? You could do photo scanning! You could convert your photos to a digital format, which you could save and view on your computer screen. In this format you could upload them to the web and share them with your Aunt Maggie down in Oz.

Using a Scanner

The easiest way to do photo scanning is to use a flatbed scanner. You just lift the lid of the scanner and place your photo on the glass panel. Then you preview your image on your screen and crop the photo to the size you want. Next, you just press the scan button and your photo will be scanned.

Scan Photo Formats

The best format to save your scanned photo in is a jpg format. The scanned photo is compressed so that the file size becomes smaller. By compressing the file, jpg format photo scans are slightly lower in quality because some bits of information are lost during the compression process. If you were to enlarge the photo onscreen you’ll observe that the quality of the image becomes poorer. However, the jpg format is ideal for most of your photo scanning requirements as its easy to work with and quick to download.

Scanning Slides and Negatives

You shouldn’t just stop at photo scanning. You should also scan your slides and negatives to make sure you’ve got a copy of you personal history in digital format. As slides and negatives will deteriorate over time, there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to view your slides and develop photos from negatives after several years of neglect. So your best bet to maintain an accurate photographic record of your family history is to have your slides and negatives scanned to digital format.

Scanning Services

If you can’t scan your photos yourself, use scanning services which charge a fee. Don’t scan at a higher resolution than 300dpi. You don’t need much higher than that unless your require very high quality print images of your photos. Generally, 300 dpi is the best choice for photo scanning. You’ll have to pay a higher rate for 600 – 1200 dpi and the file sizes will also be larger. That means you’re going to use up quite a bit of hard drive if you’ve got plenty of photos to scan. They will also load slower when you upload them to your web photo folder or send them to your friends as an email attachment.

Photo scanning is the ideal method to preserve your prized photographs from deteriorating. You don’t have to worry about your photos fading, gluing together or getting burnt to a crisp and lost forever if you’ve got a scanned copy. Get down to scanning your photos and share a piece of your history online!

Important

It a good idea to preserve your photographic legacy though photo scanning and share them online with your far flung family members. You can save a lot of hassle by having your photos scanned professionally!

Henrich is a tech guru with years of experience in tech gadgets and latest developments