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What dpi should I be scanning my old photos in?

What dpi should I be scanning my old photos in?

I scanning in my old paper photos from the 80s and 90s.

Asked by: Guest | Views: 263
Total answers/comments: 4
Guest [Entry]

"Scan them at a high enough resolution that you'll never need to scan them again. i.e. ""archival"" quality. I'm assuming the old photos are important and you want to keep them for a long time, and view them both on screen and perhaps re-print later.

Generally, space is cheap, but your time isn't. I suggest 600dpi minimum, and more if you can handle it.

Finally, make sure you save your scans in a non-lossy format such as PNG. Avoid JPG as an archival format.

If you ever want to put the images on a web site or email them, you can scale them down and use a lossy format at that point."
Guest [Entry]

"If you are certain you can't see any perceptible difference then I'd say keep it at 150dpi. It sounds a bit low though, are you looking at them fitted to your screen?

If you only ever intend to view them on-screen then 150dpi is probably well enough. If you intend to print them, make sure the difference isn't perceptible there too! I would expect you'd need more like 300dpi for printing, unless the originals are of a less-than-perfect quality.

Lastly, if you're worried about file size play around with the JPEG compression setting. You may then be able to scan them at a higher resolution and still get smaller files with imperceptible quality loss."
Guest [Entry]

Most people have suggested no less than 600 dpi I have been using 1200 and even then sometimes the original photo is so low resolution can't get larger copy of it.
Guest [Entry]

"Dpi settings are for dots per inch, and most photos are printed at 300 dots per inch, when you scan your original photo at a higher setting it doubles the resolution and size you can print that photo. For example.

4x6 Photo scanned at... Can be printed at...
600 dpi. 8x12
1200 dpi 16x36

I hope this clears up any miscalculations of dots per inch."