What Everybody Ought to Know When Naming Your Scanned Photos – Part 3
And so we reach part 3, the final installment of this series on giving your photos a useful filename after you scan them.
In Part 1, I introduced you to the 3-part naming system I use for my photos. With the first part, you start out the filename with the date the photo was shot in the order of YEAR-MONTH-DAY. Then in Part 2, I showed you how to use useful keywords to build a description of what you see in the photograph.
In part 3, we will discuss how to add the last part to the filename – a block of easy-to-create “code” that will reveal to anyone with your “key” the exact scanner settings you used to scan the photo.
Wait, wait, wait! Before you write me off as completely mad and click away to another page [gasp], please hear me out on this. It's really easy and, most importantly, helpful. I promise!
Part 3 – Add Your Scanner Settings to the Filename
Even though I think this will eventually benefit even those with the most basic of goals for their scanned photo collections, I know it might be too much to ask of someone who doesn’t have the time or patience to be this thorough. But I beg you to at least follow me through my process here and see if I can convince you of its benefits.
So first off, let's discuss the enormous pink elephant wearing silk boxer shorts standing in the middle of the room.
Why on Earth Would You Ever Want to Know What Scanner Settings You Used?
Let me answer that by telling you about the situation I was in a while back that made it painfully obvious to me that I needed to add this new bit of information to all of my filenames.
A few months into my scanning, I tested with the “Dust Removal” setting in Epson Scan, the software that came with my scanner. Scanning magnifies all of the tiny pieces of dust on your prints and negatives, so I wanted to see if this setting could save me a little bit of this cleanup time afterward in my image manager. You certainly don't have to do this cleanup if it doesn't bother you. With my nagging attention to detail, it's an extra step I want to take.
I did a bunch of scans with the setting on high, medium, low, and then off. Comparing all of the scans, I came to the conclusion that I could use the medium setting without finding any “visible” loss of detail. But then one day, months and months later, I noticed in a photo I had just scanned that it had a small clump of detail missing! It was like a digital smudge in someone's hairline.
Was it a big deal? Probably not to a lot of people. But to me, it was huge. It meant the setting was undependable for my goals because the fancy mathematical algorithm in the software could be too evasive at any time, unbeknownst to me. Without studying each new scan with the original, practically under a magnifying glass, I could easily run the risk of having many more of these digital “smudges” and never catching them until it's too late. That didn't seem like a road I wanted to go down for the rest of my collection.
For me, it's more important to have a “raw” unaffected scan and have to do a few minutes of dust removal later in my image manager than it is to use this “time-saving” filter at the risk of it subtly ruining each photo.
So not only did I decide to no longer use the Dust Removal filter anymore, but I also wanted to go back and rescan all of the pictures I scanned with it so I was sure I didn't lose out on any detail that I would regret later.
But here was the problem – I couldn't remember what day or even the photo I first started using the filter on for the life of me! Ugh!! Why didn't I write that down!?
I don't think most people stick with the same exact scanner settings day in and day out with every photo in their collection. I think most of us experiment and adjust here and there to match our mood, or maybe something we read online or based on how another setting worked for us on a previous photo.
That day, when I was pulling all of my graying hair out, it occurred to me that how I was scanning my photos – what settings I was using – was also part of my image's DNA and should be recorded in its “descriptive tattoo” – its filename. But I knew, however, I chose to do it had to be extremely easy to generate and also had to be easily understood by someone else new to reading it.
How to Add Your Scanner Settings to Your Filenames
So this is what I came up with. I took the name of the setting and turned it into one or two letters. Then, if the setting had its own “pulldown menu” option, I would also turn it into a one-character value. (It's much simpler than it sounds. I keep promising you that it is, so let me show you so you can see for yourself.)
Examples:
Below is how it would look in Epson's “Epson Scan” set in one of the easiest modes – the “Home Mode.” This mode just means there are very few settings the user has to choose from. The program is set to scan a color photograph at 300 dpi (ppi) with the descreening filter set to on.
(Please note: these examples aren't necessarily based on “settings” recommendations. I made them up just for the sake of explaining how they would be implemented in my naming system)
So using this example, highlighted in blue is what I would add after parts 1 and 2 of a filename from my last post:
“1925-xx-xx Marvel Ruth House Front Illinois – (ES-300-DS)“
Do you see what I did there?
I scanned the photo using Epson Scan at 300 dpi with Descreening turned on.
Let me show you another example that has a few more options to choose from. This again is using Epson Scan but set in the “Professional Mode”:
“1978-02-xx Blanket Tent Tunnel Winter Snow Day – (ES-600-48b-UM-DRm)“
In this one, the photo was scanned again using Epson Scan, but at 600 dpi, 48-bit color, with the Unsharp Mask turned on and the Dust Removal filter set to medium.
Cool huh!? And it's really that easy.
Putting All 3 Parts Together
So now you know how I currently label all my scanned photos. It's just a matter of combining all three parts into one “longer” filename.
If you want to start using this system, you might find it really helpful if you write down your entire formula on a piece of paper or a handy index card so you can pull it out and reference it whenever you decide to have a scanning session. They may be few and far between, so having them at your fingertips is very handy.
| YY-MM-DD – Event/Location/People – (Scanner Software – DPI – Color Bit – Filters/Settings) |
You also might find it useful to have a legend (cheat sheet) written down somewhere of your scanner setting abbreviations. You may remember what they mean now, but maybe not in a couple of weeks, or worse… 5 or 10 years from now.
Scanning Filename Legend
| UM | Unsharp Mask |
| DS | Descreening |
| CR | Color Restoration |
| BC | Backlight Correction |
| DR | Dust Removal |
| DI | Digital Ice |
And for my last tip, it’s important to ensure this information is typed into your filenames right after you complete the scan, or you will quickly forget the settings you used for each one. At the latest, type it in before you import or drag them into your image manager, such as Apple Photos or Adobe Lightroom.
So in wrapping up this series, imagine with me, if you will, 30 or more years from now, a family member who inherited your collection is looking at your hard work. They don't have access to your original negatives or prints because they are gone, but this person does have your folders full of your master (scanned) images you were so careful to back up through the years.
Which of the following two folders of photos would you prefer them to access? Which one would be the most helpful to them?
Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed my “Naming Your Scanned Photos” series and are able to implement as much of it as you like into your own photos.
Cheers!
Loved this 3 part series!!!
Please recommend some free photo editing soft ware.
(I was directed to GIMP – but way too sophisticated for me.)
Thanks!
Goodness! Between the little amount that I had already sussed out and your magnificent and commonsensical suggestions, I’m ALMOST excited about taking on this massive project.I work as a graphic designer and most of my project files start with your date method, Professionally, that much made a lot of sense.
But the rest of your guidance is VERY much appreciated.
Thank you.
Separate from the technical aspects of your directions, I would like to comment on just how entertaining the article was. I ACTUALLY laughed out loud twice.
Really well done.
p.s. Coincidentally, I use the Epson Perfection V370 Photo scanner.
Really brilliant advice. So glad I found it – before I started the bulk scanning. I’m practicing by renaming old photos using this system so I can get in the habit. Makes so much sense. I knew someone out there had already put a lot of thought into this!
So glad I found this website!! I’ve been trying to wrap my head around how to organize my photos in files, and I found your information really helpful. Thanks!
So glad to hear, Allison! You’re so welcome. 🙂
Thank you for your wonderful suggestions! I am going to carry your idea of a legend or cheat sheet one step farther and printed out so that I can take a photo of it and add it at the front or back of each folder of photos, so the legend stays with the group in case I lose my printed sheet. Maybe that way whoever inherits my digital files will also know what the initials mean. I will also take a photo of my legend or cheat sheet of the initials for people. In my family we have several Bob’s and several juniors and seniors. So my husband would be RBBjr and his dad, RBBsr.
I appreciate the time and effort you’ve put into this body of work. I too have been stuck in the mud that is trying to come up with the “perfect” naming system and DPI settings. You’ve cleared up quite a bit for me but I still have a couple of questions.
First, is about, I guess we’ll call it work flow. So I scan an image in and save it as a .tif file, this is now my “new master or original”. Untouched from any corrections or editing. I open this image in photoshop and “clean it up”, remove scratches and anything else that stands out. Now I save this with the same file nameplus “-edited.tif. So this becomes my working master of the scan. But now I have to .tif files basically doubling my storage needs. I’m not worried about storage I have terabytes of storage. I still wonder if doing this makes sense because maybe what I edit or correct will be different to someone else or future technology may offer better ways than I can do manually. Basically I give the future person an untouched original scan. Thoughts?
Secondly, I want to save these as jpgs so others can browse through the collection and download what they want. I have to assume a greater portion won’t know what to do with a .tif so that’s why I want to save it as a jpg. But I can’t decide on what size. Since I don’t know what they’ll use it for I tend to lean towards saving it as large as my dpi settings I used for my .tif file. In other words, if I use 600 dpi for my master .tif scan, use the same for the jpg. Again assuming someone may not know how to resize a jpg for web or email use I could make multiple jpgs and appended with what they are (-large.jpg, -web.jpg, etc). Thoughts?
Ok, third question. It sort of goes with me not worrying about storage capacity but more towards future use of a scan. While 600 dpi seems to be the consensus, I still wonder about using 1200 dpi (my scanner doesn’t have anything in between, Brother MFC-490CW). This is still with an eye to the future. I don’t want to assume just because I don’t see a need to ever want to blow a picture up to a certain size that someone else wouldn’t either, so they have options. Future home printers may make this more possible or places that put the image of items may work better with the larger 1200 dpi.
I know I can’t contend with every future possibility, but I want to do my best within reason. There will be file formats long gone and new ones that will be as common as jpgs are today. We are so far at the bottom of the technology curve, we don’t even know it’s a curve yet, it looks like a straight line. But that will be something the next generation and beyond will have to deal with, I just want to pass on something they can work with in their time.
And thank you for your time and thoughts on my crazy talk of future technology.
Please keep up the great work
Mark Velasco
Mark, you ask some of the same questions that I have been dealing with. I’ve pretty much handled it in a similar fashion to you. I use the original tiff scan (or dng file if I use my camera to “scan”) as a ‘digital negative’ that gets filed away on an external drive dedicated for this (that also gets backed up nightly). These are my peace-of-mind files that let me restore anything I goof up or loose while processing. They also allow me to reprocess select photos from scratch using any new editing software I might acquire (the new AI features are great!). Years down the road, I don’t expect these digital negatives to have much value once all my processing is finished. My working TIFF/DNG files go into my digital asset manager (currently I use Lightroom Classic CC, but Adobe Bridge would work equally well). I can process them in Lightroom or using any of several programs that have Lightroom plug-ins or setup as external editors.
While TIFF/DNG files are great for lossless master copies, they don’t play well with the online world. Friends and family want JPEG files to share, save, and view online. I will export any desired pictures into JPEG format using their full resolution. Since I use Google Photos for much of my online photos, they have a size limit of 16 megapixels for their free storage, which is close to full resolution.
I tailor my scanning DPI to what I am scanning. If the original photo prints are of poor quality, 600 dpi may be overkill, while a high quality print with lots of small important details (think group photo where you might want to later enlarge a single person) may benefit from scanning at higher resolutions up to 1200 dpi and above. I will usually do several test scans at varying resolutions to find where increasing the dpi fails to give any significantly increased scan detail. After a while you can judge the resolution you’ll need just by looking at the print with a magnifying glass.
As far as future-proofing my image collection, I’m not too worried. When new standards develop, there are always means to translate old common formats into the new improved ones. The key is to make an image collection important enough so that someone will want to do the updating. It needs to be organized and easy to navigate with lots of informative metadata embedded into the image files. A family history collection that is memorable and widely shared.
I’ve gotten many great ideas and suggestions from this site. Now I just need more time to actually get those pictures scanned.
Dave
Dave,
Thanks for your input. I also came to the conclusion of having master tiff or raw file and working off a copy tiff or raw for the same reason. Altering the photo in a lossless format just made sense. And as you stated jpgs just work better in the online world.
I just people direct links to my master jpg files on OneDrive which has a 2GB per file limit or this newer service I came across Forever.com, where you don’t rent online storage, you buy it, either monthly until paid off or a single payment. Prices vary but you can add more storage as you need. Full high resolution photos, videos or documents. They guarantee your content for your lifetime plus at least one hundred years. They will also convert your content if a new standard comes along. And you can name a person to take over for you once you pass on. You can of course provide direct links to some or all of the content you store just like OneDrive. What I like is there no on going monthly fee, unless you’re paying for your storage monthly. But once your paid in full, no more charges unless you buy more storage.
So once I get this naming structure standardized, I’ll feel much better about what I’m leaving future family members. I have a ticket open with Microsoft about max path length and max filename length since an article from one of their KB sites implies that they are on the way to making that a non issue, but it’s a little technical and while I am a Microsoft Certified Professional, this is more in the development of the underlying platform that makes up windows. 🙂
Thanks for your articles Curtis, they have really helped me. I tried to scan my family’s photos years ago but never finished. Now that I read your articles about naming, I realize that was my problem before! I kept getting lost in an endless sea of similar filenames and I just had to walk away from it before it drove me nuts. Thanks to your naming system suggestions, and the suggestions of a few members who left comments too, I think I can do this! You have made my life so much easier now. Thanks so much. 😀
Some back-up systems have a problem with dashes (-)
I use an underscore (_) which does not run afoul of backups.
Excellent tips! Maintaing a scanning “key” isn’t a bad idea because it tells family the original photo exists with hopefully the negative. Including the key (and your article) as a file along with the collection, or parts of, that passes on ensures they know how the photo was edited.
Hi Curtis: I have been reading all your articles and post, and am Blown Away! I just bought a V600, cleaners, dust brush, etc. I have a Mac 10.6.8 Snow Leopard, with iPhoto. I want to scan several 1000 slides, and make copies on disks for family members. I am leery of iPhoto after reading some comments on your sites! My concern is: after scanning, (and using Vuescan?) and using a manager such as Lightroom, can I store on a disk, and let others access the images without their having Lightroom software? I realize that my questions are very elementary, but the process seems very comlplicated! Maybe I should just charge in & start scanning! Thanks, Gene Welsh
Hi Gene! Congratulations on getting started on your scanning project! There’s technically nothing wrong with iPhoto, as long as you are content running it on older versions of MacOS (as the latest versions aren’t guaranteed to support it) and you aren’t interested in future updates. iPhoto is what it is, and it’s not ever getting any more updates.
Letting others access your photos really comes down to where you end up storing the images you want them to have access to. iPhoto by default, stores master images inside of a library file folder that is closed off to most other applications. This means others can’t access your photos unless you export them out as new versions and save them in a place they (or another application) can access. Or, you can tell iPhoto (or the new Apple Photos application) to keep your master images stored outside of the library file instead by following the instructions I wrote about in this post: How to Get iPhoto to Store Your Photos Inside or Outside of the iPhoto Library (Managed vs. Referenced)
Point to all of this, is if your photos are being stored outside of any managed library file, then anyone can access these photos without having to have and use the same photo manager you choose to use.
For the longest time, I’ve kept all of my scanned photos in folders I created in Finder, and then I’ve accessed them all with photo managers such as Aperture (“referenced” method explained in the post I liked to above), Lightroom and ACDSee. Storing them outside of a “managed” library file gives you the ultimate control in being able to use whatever application you’d like, or none at all, to access your photo collection.
Hi Curtis,
Great info and very useful. I did have a question that I can’t seem to find much info about. When there’s a group shot of , say, family, The date/people/event/location format still makes sense, but the peoples names is where I get hung up. I’m thinking down the road when 30-40 years have gone by and having just first names might not make sense to the person looking at the image. There might be 3 or 4 last names because of marriages, basically branches on the family tree. Even first names, Zach or Zachary, Jenn or Jennifer, Fred and so on. I could put that in the metadata but still that metadata would get huge with first, last names and abbreviated first names. I get that it makes sense now when looking at the image, but a couple of generations from now who knows who will be trying to make sense of this picture. And this isn’t even getting into the thousands of images yet to be scanned.
Your insight would be appreciated. I could make a note on the formatting doc instructing the person managing these images to look at the metadata for more details. Who knows what capabilities will be available to them much the same way we were blown away when we could store 512MB of data, that was insane, who would ever have a need for that much space.
Thanks
Mark
Hi Mark. Good question.The more advanced you get into naming your files, the more you find that group shots is going to become problematic.
I stress labeling people in filenames in my post, mainly because I know most people aren’t going to go further than a filename. Asking people to get into using metadata is often a challenge. So, by suggesting they put at least a first name in photos, it at least gives that photo a small fighting chance that its owner is going to list who’s in it, even if it’s merely a first name.
The more advanced you get into this project, the more you might find that less information in the filename, and more information in IPTC metadata fields such as keywords and captions is where you will get the most advantages.
Archivists often attach paperwork to their archives, that act as a legend to more cryptic information. One way to reduce the amount of characters in a filename, or a caption field, would be to abbreviate people’s names — specifically using initials, including their middle initial when you know it. The middle initial will most often differentiate a person far enough as to avoid any duplicates. Then in your legend, you can write out people’s names and the initials you used for them just in case caption information from within the entire collection isn’t enough for our relatives in the future to figure out our friends and extended family in our collections.
You could also put the initials as keywords, and save them in this metadata that will live with each photo. Or your keyword for each person could be made of their full name. It could make for a long keyword (many characters), but as long as your photo manager can handle wrapping a long keyword to the next line, it could work to your advantage by not having to abbreviate with initials and creating a legend (that we always worry could get lost some day).
Consistency is truly key here. For example, make sure if you go with maiden names, you continue to use them throughout your collection to avoid confusion by someone accessing your collection in the future.
I’m pleased, in a demented sort of way, to learn I’m not the only person this “ocd” about photos and images. I have scanned images of old photos dating from before I was born in ’52 (passed down from my parents) to those taken until 2004 when I finally switched to digital cameras, all together some 35,000 photographs. I don’t remember when, exactly (those xx-dates) I started dating exactly as you “suggest” (I demand the same thing), but 2016 0812 (today’s date) now seems like the only “natural” way to say the thing. But all along the way, this search for the “perfect filing system” was the same, the idea that fifty years from now someone is going to look at these images and I want them to know, if nothing else, when it was taken and who the major characters are. Great article indeed.
Thanks Randy. Very nice of you to say, from one fellow “obsessive compulsive” photo archiver to another! Your future family members will cherish your collection you’re going to be leaving them. :coffee:
Curtis – This 3 part series was awesome!!! (as is some of the additional info from the comment section). It’s an overwhelming process to be sure, and I have thousands of my own family photos and have agreed/offered (am I crazy?!) to scan all of my parents’ photos as well…your article gives me inspiration and hope that I will actually get it done!
Oh thank you Lynda! Yeah, you are… I mean WE might be a little crazy! There’s always someone in our families that feels responsible to carry along the genealogy or photo collection and apparently we are the ones in ours. It WILL take you a long time, even hiring a photo scanning service will only cut out some of the time required, to digitize, label and organize your photo collection. But, it’s SO worth it. It’s so much fun seeing an unorganized collection come together (again) in an organized way. 🙂
Hi,
Thank you posting this.
I’m about to start scanning my mums albums 10.000+ paper photos.
I found that Epson scan produces very nice scans. (and I purchased Vuescan Pro and Silverfast SE edition).
My settings,
Epson V700
400dpi (this creates about 20mb of file size instead of 600dpi with 40-50mb pr image, postcard size)
48bit color depth. I know screen can only handle 24..but its better to have as much as possible while doing the scan first time.
Tiff format. Of course to have the best possible stored information and no compression.
I have tried several options with trying to get “best looking” image after the scan.
1.) Scanning the image as “raw as possible” with least options and then save it.
This makes me able to work with the image later on if I want too..
2.) Then scan same image again and apply the filters;
UM Unsharp Mask
CR Color Restoration
..using the point over actually gives me a very good image, abit sharp and colors are more natural.
***
Having said that above, i’m also planing on getting my hands more dirty with using lumina from ScanScience – but that is next step 🙂 This work will take much longer, and I guess i need to work with the paper photos to get them in right order.. before I can start scanning negative 35mm images.
Well Stig, it certainly seems as if you’ve got a great handle on your workflow — congrats!!
How’s your scanning of those 10k photos going so far?
Hi Curtis, this is really cool!. I have never used these symbols when naming files: – ( ) _ I didn’t know you could do that! & I assumed in the future these symbols might not work, I didn’t know they worked in the present! (ha) . Are you sure it will be safe to use brackets & minus signs? I think I might do your method but instead of minus sign and brackets, just have a space bar space. Awesome 3 page read. Thank you. 🙂 luv the x idea – Jill, New Zealand.
Hi Jill. I must admit, I’m a bit spoiled using that latest version of the Mac OS X, which is very liberal when it comes to what symbols it allows in the file naming.
If I am completely transparent with you, an archivist would probably tell you not to be so liberal, as to maximize the probability that your photo collection would be most compatible now, tomorrow, and years from now… on the greatest amount of platforms available — Mac, PC, Linux etc.
But, I’m of the optimistic bunch, and I am constantly reading more and more articles about computer OS updates and the directions they are moving towards. And my feeling is that OS’s as a whole are getting more liberal, and not more conservative with what they are allowing.
And at some point, if YOU are the archivist, spending countless hours to scan and organize, your sanity is important! If you can stay sane, by creating a filename on your computer that is easy for your eyes and brain to read and computer, then I believe you should do so! It’s worth it. And the odds that your filenames will work in the future are far greater, I believe, than the odds they won’t — for the reason I mentioned above.
And chances are right now, or soon, there is an application that can easily batch-change all of your filenames as they are now as you want them to be — symbols and all — and convert them to a version that a more conservative file system can read. So, there are always “ways out” of this pickle in the future.
Stay sane Jill — embrace your symbols I say — if your computer can handle them! :coffee:
Thank you for putting up this great website! I have just begun renaming scanned images for my genealogy. (unfortunately many photos are from my nan’s box & contain people unknown to me). A great idea to put x when date not known. Where I can name the people, I want to put a caption below the photo. I want this to be transferred with the photo so others can see it. what would you suggest? I have access to PC & Mac
Hi Betty! Thank you so much for the compliments on my website. 🙂
The best place to add information under a photo is add it in the caption fields inside photo managers. The best of them will then save this caption information into to the “metadata” stored inside of each of your master images, so that no matter which program you use later to view your photo, this caption information will always be in the file with it.
I wrote about adding captions in 4 of the most popular image managers out there (I haven’t added how to do it with the new Apple Photos application yet though) in this post that you should check out.
https://www.scanyourentirelife.com/best-way-add-description-caption-your-scanned-photos/
If you are aren’t an advanced computer user, I would use Picasa on a PC, or Photos or Picasa (Mac version) on a Mac. If you have iPhoto on your Mac and like using it, then just stick with it. Photos is replacing iPhoto, but iPhoto will still work for a while longer.
Great article. One unrelated question. I am researching additional software for scanning because my scanner, although good quality, is lacking in the ‘auto crop’ feature (ability to scan multiple images at once and software will crop and straighten each photo and provide ability to name and file each image separately). I am leaning towards the following software packages: vuescan; silverfast; irfanview; autosplitter; scanspeeder. Are you familiar with any of these? Also, I plan to scan at 24-bit. I have read it really doesn’t make a difference to scan in either 24 or 64 bit. You opinion is appreciated!
Hi Susan. Thanks for the compliments! :coffee:
Which software are you currently using might I ask? (so I can make a point of making a note of this in my records, or to test it out myself if I have a copy of that software).
I have heard of VueScan, Silverfast and Irfanview, but not the last two. It’s hard to beat the price of Irfanview, but if you want the best but easy to use, I wouldn’t look further than VueScan. The guy that develops it works hard to maintain compatibility with a ton of scanners out there — but keeps it fairly easy to operate. Silverfast has a reputation for being much harder to master.
As far as bitrate, it’s really about how much subtlety you want to archive. Many print photos that are decades old may not have a lot of dynamic range in them to warrant the higher bitrate (16-bits per channel or 48-bit as you often hear it called). So, many feel it’s a waste of time and drive space.
I argue that because some photos will in fact have enough range to warrant the higher rate, it’s better to scan them all at the higher rate and archive it, just so that you have the subtleties saved if in fact you do find you need access to it. Especially if you want to do a lot of adjustments (edits) later with color correction and dust and scratch removals for example. Having that extra range can pay off later. Especially now with computing speed and drive space is so much cheaper than it used to be, making the time and room for it on a drive isn’t such a compromise anymore.
But, this isn’t to say you are doing a complete disservice to yourself by only scanning at 24 bit (8 bits per channel). It just depends on your goals and how much pressure you want to put on yourself to give you the most options down the line given the choices you make now. 😉
Hello Curtis – thanks for the quick reply.
At this point, I am not scanning any of the photos until I have a clear plan. But right now I am testing dpi and file type. The software I am using right now to scan came with the Brother MF (HL-2280) and it is pretty basic and thus I need to go with some other software to scan to get some more options, such as the auto crop and scanning multiple images at once.
Scanning Software
I am testing ScanSpeeder and it is very basic. I plan to test VueScan and the freebie, Irfanvue. Those are the three in the running. The winner MUST have auto crop/multiple images.
Test for DPI / JPEG / TIFF
I did a test on one image: Constant is 24-bit. Black and White not as sharp as most photos.
JPEG 300X300 DPI
JPEG 600X600 DPI
TIFF 300X300
TIFF 600X600
Then I converted the TIFF 600×600 to a JPEG
On the computer monitor and for an eagle eye the TIFF 600×600 test is what I am going with.
I tried to look at all the tests on my Samsung TV with a flash drive and found out from Samsung support that the TV (even the new Smart TV’s) only support JPEG NOT TIFF files. They have to be converted to JPEGS. Mmmmm – really…..that was disappointing. So I will plug in my laptop later and see how that works.
My only dillema now is trying to figure out if using 24-bit in lieu of buying a dedicated scanner with a higher bit rate is the best decision.
My photo collection of my family spans back to the 40’s and color starting around the 60’s.
I do have negatives for 90% of the images.
I spent nearly 2 years organizing the photos matching them with the negatives. Then i was reading that it so much better to scan the negative instead of the print. Great – being the perfectionist that I am, that threw in another fork in the road that needs to be addressed.
Getting there…..it’s like painting a room, the prep work is really the hard part.
Thanks again!
Hi Susan. I’ve found that working with the negatives gives a noticeably better result than scanning the prints. Of course I only have the negatives for a small percentage of my photos. If you have a digital SLR camera with macro lens, I would recommend using that approach to digitize the negatives. It’s just as good as scanning (or better depending on your equipment) and much faster. I just mount my camera on a tripod so it shoots straight down, and position it over a lightbox on which I place the negative. I save the images as RAW files, which I convert in Lightroom to DNG. There are lots of variations of this technique on the internet (Google ‘SLR scan negative’).
I would definitely scan prints using TIFF, even with the larger file sizes. Having a TIFF file lets me clean things up (dust spots, scratches, etc.) without loosing any detail; something that happens when you use JPEG files. Once you have your finished, processed image, then you can save a copy of it as a JPEG for easier viewing/sharing. Keep the original TIFF files in an archive as your “digital negatives”.
Good luck with your project.
Dave
Curtis,
First, thanks for taking the time to document your efforts in preserving your family’s memories! The paths you’ve taken and questions you’ve raised over the years are the same that many of us who are picking this up for the first time (or after a long hiatus) are thinking.
A little background first, before I get into my question…
I started scanning photos and organizing my negatives about 10 years ago, when I decided that I needed to up the quality of my scans and just do the negatives. After reading many reviews over the years of dedicated film scanners, I was disheartened on the time it would take to scan our whole collection (7,000 of ours,, plus about 15,000 of parents and grandparents). I put all of this on hold and am now approaching a point in my life where it looks like I’ll have a bit of free time over the next few years (kids off to college) to get back into the swing of things. I’m considering a flatbed in lieu of a film scanner simply for the versatility.
When it comes to a numbering system, yours includes a vast amount of information, and it really got me thinking how I would tie it all together with some additional info I’d like to track, so here is the naming convention I’m considering:
Date – Event – Location – People – Sequence – Original Type – Source – Source Number – Scanner Settings
Date, event, location, people, sequence, scanner settings would be the same as you’re using.
Original Type would be SLide, PHoto, NEgative
Source would be the initials of the person who provided the original (maiden name for the ladies, any doubt as to who BDR is would come from my Ancestry data, but that’s a different project altogether!).
Source Number would be the reference number the source has for the original. For instance, I have all of my 35mm negatives in sleeved pages in 3 ring binders. Every roll is numbered sequentially. Thus with a source number in the image, I can go right back to the source very quickly.
Each item would be separated by hyphens for clarity, and all are optional.
Am I overthinking this?
Thanks!
Tom
Hi Tom. I like your idea of adding additional source information. If the source and source number are something you’ll be using frequently or need easy access to, then adding it to the file name makes a lot of sense. I put this sort of information in the picture file metadata. There’s an IPTC field called “Source”, where I routinely keep this info. After adding a batch of pictures from the same source into Lightroom, it’s a simple process to add the pertinent information to the source field.
I don’t have nearly as many negatives to deal with as you do. After dabbling with scanning them, I found that photographing my slides and negatives using my DSLR with macro lens gave much better results and was significantly faster than scanning. I just mount my camera pointing straight down on my tripod and use a light box for a light source. Some people use a flash setup. A Google search on “negative digitize slr” will bring up lots of sites that show you how they do it.
Good luck with your project.
Dave
Hi Curtis,
First of all, I want to thank you for putting up this AWESOME website! Seriously, a lot of your archiving tips really helped me out.
A few years ago, I’ve gained a passion in archiving and preserving my family’s vast, scattered photo, slide, & negative collection. Being a dental student now, it’s increasingly hard trying to find the time to do this, but with this summer off I’m trying to spend as much time as possible continuing this project.
After wrestling for a while on the file-naming concept, I originally decided to organize my photos chronologically. I researched different methods on how I could best name my photos and came up with this structure, which is split into 3 parts: 1st – grouping # out of total photos in album (i.e. 01 indicates range possibility of 1 to 99 photos, 001 can go up to 999), 2nd – descriptive title, & 3rd – year:month:day date format. For example:
001 Bill’s 20th Birthday at Smith Home 1977_03_12.tiff
After buying a new Epson V550 scanner this year, I’ve only recently started scanning in 35mm slides and negatives onto my Macbook Pro. Now after reading your 3-part article on naming scanned photos, I’ve begun to analyze and rethink my classification system. I also purchased 2 album binders and am currently putting my slides & negatives physically into PrintFile archival pages. I like the idea of using a 5-digit numbering system to identify all of my pictures… but the task of implementing that seems daunting to me.
The main question I want to ask is how can I modify my current naming structure? Also should I eliminate spaces and insert more hyphens/underscores? Where in the file name is the best place to insert the 5-digit number with added scanning detail? Should I organize and label all of my physical pictures first, then sort through and organize them digitally? I just wish there was some standardized method of naming that could be universally accepted.
Hopefully I didn’t overwhelm you with my questions. I’m sure you have been doing this way longer than I have, so I’ll take any tips or advice you can give me. Thanks!
–Dan–
Hi Dan. I started typing out a nice reply to your comment yesterday morning. About 30 minutes into it, I looked down and noticed how many words I had just typed! It seemed like there was already enough useful information in your question and my answer, that I didn’t want all of this to get buried in “just” a comment at the end of a post.
So I worked on it the rest of the day and this morning turning it into a full Q&A style post. It just went live a few minutes ago, so check it out and please let me know if I answered everything for you. If I didn’t, just let me know in the comments and I will be sure to answer them for you!
Thanks for the questions. 🙂
https://www.scanyourentirelife.com/how-modify-scanned-photo-file-naming-structure/
I’ve been looking off and on for years for a functional way to name my photos in my computer, both scanned and straight off my digital camera. I got so discouraged with this in the past that scanning my mother’s photo collection had gotten put off for the last 10 or so years. Mom is gone now, but an upcoming family reunion has me considering the job again with the hopes of getting some help in figuring out the unknown or forgotten stories behind more than a few of the photos. I found your website on my first Google search, and Gav above is correct, you ARE an actual hero! I love your writing style, and your formula is so simple, it’s brilliant!! Thank you for finally giving me the confidence to get this job started again, and hopefully finished in time for the family get-together.
Thanks Jeannette, I really appreciate your words and time spent letting me know how you feel. Thank you, really.
I’m sorry to hear about your loss. I think what you know you want to do, would be great. And what a wonderful tribute that would be for your Mom if you overcame this tremendous obstacle that has been facing you all this time, and you put together some kind of presentation for your entire family. It doesn’t have to be perfect, or even complete! It doesn’t have to tell the entire story. I believe everyone will just be so happy to see something, to see photos they haven’t seen in years, or possibly EVER!
Please Jeannette, let me know it all turns out. I know you will put together something great. :coffee:
You are an actual hero.
Thank you for these articles, Curtis.
Wow — thank you Gav! I really appreciate that. 🙂 So glad I was able to help you. :beer:
Curtis,
Thanks so much for your website. This is very helpful indeed. I am so glad I found your site. I just purchased the Epson V600 and thought I could get right to scanning until I realized that I still had a lot more research to do (dpi/bits/naming) and came upon your site. It has been invaluable so far!
I have decided to use your chart for the recommended dpi and have increased from 600dpi to 720dpi.
~I do have a question regarding 24bit vs 48bit. What is recommended?
~Also is the dust removal option recommended?
Thanks!
Ching
Hi Ching! You’re so welcome — I love that you are enjoying the website. :coffee:
Excellent purchase with the V600. As far as your two questions about settings, I could write 10 pages on each. It’s too much for me to cover in here. But, the short answer is that I personally prefer to scan at 48 bit and without dust removal turned on.
Not all photos have enough colors and tones to warrant 48-bits, but if you are going to scan an entire collection with one setting, and there’s a chance you have advanced goals for your collection, then I would play it safe and scan with 48-bits. Your current image editor of choice may not be able to handle 48-bits (16 per channel), but it may some day. If it doesn’t, it will just ask you to lower your “working copy” of the image to 24-bits when you do the editing. But, you still have the option of archiving the higher bit rate if you should ever choose to go back to this version. Higher end programs like Photoshop, Aperture and Lightroom can handle the 48-bits.
I am currently not a big fan of the dust filter because it’s not 100% accurate. (what IS though right?) If you aren’t careful and inspect each scan afterwards when you had the filter on, you might later find it thought something on the photo was dust that really wasn’t and tried and fix it. Have you seen celebrities that have gone too far with face lifts? This can happen to your photos as well if you trust them too much with these “dust” filters. They can over-pixelate your images in places they try and fix, and they can look mutated. I’m more of a purist and prefer to archive photos as close to their original state as possible. But, that’s me. So that’s a decision you will have to make for yourself.
If you do decide to use it, try it first with the “low” setting, and see if it’s doing anything to your photos. Inspect your scans zoomed in, and see if you see any of these “mutated” areas. If you aren’t noticing anything that bothers you, then maybe there’s a good chance that setting will be helpful for you. I just decided for me, it wasn’t worth the risk. I will clean my dust up later in Aperture.
Another thing that’s helpful is gently wiping each print clean of visible and unseen dust/dirt on your prints before placing them on your scanner bed. I really like the Kinetronics “tiger cloth” for this. I use it just for this purpose and nothing else, to avoid any kind of “contamination.” This won’t free you from all dust, but it’s easier cleaning this amount of dust off this way, than removing it later digitally.
Hope this helps!
Hi Curtis,
I have Epson v600 scanner, I am about to begin tackling the huge task of scanning all our family’s negatives and photos. Thank you so much for taking time to share your experiences and expertise with the rest of us! I am most thankful for the 3-part series of how to label/organize images. I do have a question, though, about adding scanner settings to the file name. In one of the comments above you said: ” I have most of it pre-filled out in my Epson Scan software and it just adds it to each new filename as the scan is saved.” How do you pre-fill it out in ES software? Thank you in advance!
Anne
Hi Anne! You’re so welcome — glad my website can be of help to you. 🙂
If you are in Epson Scan, after you have previewed your photo in the scanner bed, and then you hit the “scan” button, you will be presented with a “File Save Settings” window. (I am doing this on my Mac right now, but I would like to think it’s identical on the Windows version) The second row down, there is a “File Name (Prefix + 3 digit number)” area where you can enter in information. In this Prefix field, I enter in any kind of data I would like that will be added to the filename as it saves. I use the same “template” of data over and over, and just change the information inside each time — for example if I change the DPI setting for example. If no change is made, then this information stays the same for every scan. So in my example above, I would put this: “(ES-600-48b-UM-DRm)” in the prefix field.
I also use the “Start Number” here to help me create the “barcode” number that I use to number each photo. It only counts up with 3 digits, so if you do like I do, and use 5 digits in your barcode number, then you will need to add the first 2 digits at the end of the “prefix” field so that the total digits will be 5. If you aren’t sure what I mean by a “barcode” number, check out my post here:
https://www.scanyourentirelife.com/numbering-system-filenames-linking-scanned-photos/
Hope this helps Anne! :thumbs:
I’m in a similar situation to those described above. We somehow ended up with multiple boxes of family photos from my parents and from my wife’s parents and grandparents, all of who have passed on. For the earlier photos (before I was born), I can only estimate when the photo was taken and there are quite a few people who I don’t recognize. I have recently stated scanning these photos and just stumbled upon this website. Some very helpful information here.
The use of X’s for unknown portions of the date is so simple. Why didn’t I think of that? I have faith in the Metadata fields contained within the images. Particularly the IPTC-XMP defined fields. These are well standardized and should be easily readable in the far future. As was noted above, it is often helpful to know how you acquired the photos you are scanning. I put that information into the Source field. The scanner will automatically put the DPI info into the Horizontal and Vertical Resolution fields, as well as the name and model of scanner in the Camera fields. There are several programs that allow you to modify the Metadata. Lightroom works well for this. I also like a free program called GeoSetter, which works with the well-known command line metadata editor tool, EXIFTool. It’s very easy to search for files based on the information in any of these fields. There is also the new People Tagging metatadata (comes with Windows 7 and newer) which is part of the XMP metadata fields. This lets you draw a rectangular box around a person’s face in the picture and label it with their name. You can label as many people as you like (but two people cannot have the same name in a picture). Since this is a newer standard, not as many applications currently support it. But is is very nice for identifying a group of people in a photo while keeping the information within the picture file.
After scanning a few hundred photos (a drop in the bucket for what I still have left to do), I’ve noticed that there are generally three kinds of photos. The first kind are the generally insignificant photos. These may be technically sub-par (poor exposure or out of focus), duplicate subject matter that is better represented in other photos, or contain subject matter that is not particularly relevant to anyone (vacation picture of the dessert with no people in it). I will probably scan most of these, just to have a complete record, but I’m not interested in a perfect hi-res copy. Quick and dirty JPEG works fine for me here as I wouldn’t be particularly upset of these somehow were “lost”. The second kind of photo are those precious “keepers” that you wouldn’t mind having framed and hanging on a wall somewhere. These are those photos that show people, places, or events that are long gone and do it well, having good composition and technique. I want to get as much information from these photos into the digital file as possible. I can see having a large TIFF file for these and spending time to remove all the stray dust spects. The third kind of photos are those that fall in between the first two. They may not be a precious Keeper, but they help historically document a family members life. This includes those photos where I don’t know anyone in the photo, but it may still be important for one of my relatives. The vast bulk of the photos fall into this category.
Thank you for all your helpful tips. I’m sure they will come in handy.
Hi Curtis,
I just re-read the 3 part series and was going through the comments in all three as well. Some of this info is above my level of tech knowledge right now. Currently I am using iPhoto and whenever I import photos from my camera I bring them right into iPhoto. I am planning on sticking with managed vs referenced for the time being.
Question 1 – Is it best to import directly into a photo manager like iPhoto?
Question 2 – I’m still a little confused as to where to make the description changes to a photo (parts 1-3), do we do that on the master file and then also add the information in the photo manager? If we do this on the master file where do we find this file on a Mac?
I made notes on the process of the three parts and look forward to start labeling all of my images.
Thanks for all of your detailed information.
another great series…
I have my digital pics…in this format…and I’m scanning my film negatives by year_roll #_frame #….but was looking for something for print …never thought of doing the year.month.day format…cause I don’t know precisely on so many of them…but the xx s work…until I can narrow it down.
I don’t think I’m going to use the scanner info…
but it did give me a great idea for how to solve another prob. I’ve been trying to figure out.
I have so many different collections I’m scanning.
My personal collection.
My parents collection.
My grandmother’s collection
siblings…
and the more I scan…and share the more people, cousins, aunts, etc…are handing over their collections for me to look at and scan!!!
I’ve been trying to figure out a way to know label who it came from…
so I think I’m going to take your idea for the scanner “code”…and make it a “source code.” …either the person’s initials or name….not sure yet…but it will work!! that way…I can name them by year/month/day/subject…with the others…yet still be able to figure out where it came from. I think I would need this info…before I would need the scanner settings.
thanks for the ideas!!!
LOL! Isn’t that funny how you start the ball rolling and then every family member crawls out from the cracks and lets you know about the amazing photos in their collection you might want to just “look” at… and possibly scan if you ever have the time “soon.” 🙂
It’s all good. I love it though. On a selfish level, I love having friends and family approach me like this because often times their photos “fill in” all of these holes I had or sometimes never even knew I had with wonderful photos I’d never even seen before!
That’s an excellent idea to use a code in your filename to differentiate the source of the photos given to you. Very cool.
If you ever get adventuresome, there is a field in the IPTC metadata information where you could ALSO enter this info in (Aperture allows this for example). But, what’s great about your way is that it will always be a part of the file name and you can quickly and easily just look at the file name and know who gave it to you. You won’t need to bring up a program to display the metadata.
If you go with initials, or something really short, I’m sure you will want to keep a legend written down somewhere if some of them are from distant relatives. You might see the initials “TD” years from now and wonder who the heck that is! LOL.
I have been wanting to scan all the family photos for my kids but just didn’t have a system. I know I’ve got to categorize/ have an archival system before doing the tedious work. Thanks so much for your useful 3 part series, really enjoyed it. Most helpful too!
Quick Qs., using Canon 9000F, how do I categorize each photo as I scan them or immediately after? I’ve already created the new,custom categories I need.
Thanks again,
Winston, a real newbie to scanning.
Hey Winston! So glad enjoyed the series. 🙂
I would love to help you out, but I don’t want to suggest too much here before I know more about what you mean by “categorize”. Just so I can get a better idea what you mean, what kind of categories would you like to use and how?
If you’re asking about the best time to type in all of this information mentioned in this 3-part series, I would say the first two parts are up to you, but the last part — the scanner settings — needs to be added immediately if you intend to implement them. You don’t want to forget what settings you used for each scan and try and fill that in and get some of it wrong.
In fact, I have most of it pre-filled out in my Epson Scan software and it just adds it to each new filename as the scan is saved. I just adjust the information accordingly as I do each scan if I changed a setting around.
And the first two parts, I personally like to do later. I like to keep my scanning session times and my labeling times kept separate. I get into a zone when I scan and I like to compartmentalize the tasks so I can stay focused on just one task. But, that’s just me. Someone else might work more efficiently getting it all taken care of immediately.
That’s so great you want to do this work for you kids. If they don’t love it now, they will someday!
Let me know Winston, and I will give you some more information.
Cheers!
I am so elated I found this 3-part series of assist articles before continuing the scanning process for my family. I am easily becoming the family ‘Archivist’ at this rate, and I have only just begun the scanning process.
I think I would’ve quit this family project after my weekend of scanning (yes, I made it fun, added some process, wrote quite a few things down about how I did it), but I did not make it nearly as far in the 7 or 8 old manila bags of photos (completely unorganized, how I received them) as I wanted to originally. I wanted to give up. I have zero incentive to do this for my parents and grandparents, zero motivation beyond “I can do this because I’m the tech guy in the family, I can manage this unfolding nightmare of digital…mess.” I have a long way to go, but that always seems to go without saying in this sort of project.
Thanks for the process review, I needed it, and will likely use a similar naming method. (I’m only about 130 photos into the fray, too.)
Hey Nate. I’m sorry hear how frustrated you are with your archival endeavor. I certainly won’t say anything like, “you just aren’t doing it right” because it’s certainly not quick and it’s certainly not as easy as you think it’s going to be before you scan your first few photos.
But, it would of course be easier on you if this was something that meant something to you as you went along.
I don’t know how old you are, but I’m in my late 30’s and a lot of my memories of how things happened in my early years are already starting to fade. So this project is meaning a lot to me because I am sharing my work with my family and they are helping me to fill in a lot of the missing information and stories. It’s really becoming a special project for me I wouldn’t trade for anything.
Maybe once you’ve wrapped your head around this being more of a long term project – weeks not days, or a year not a few months – you will find it more freeing. Just tell your family, “It’s gonna take as long as it takes!” 🙂
Either way, thanks for taking the time to let me know about your experience, and to let me know you found my process to be useful. I really appreciate it!
Hi Nate,
I second Curtis’s suggestions to just keep at the scanning job. No doubt about it, it’s a time-consuming and sometimes, perhaps, also a boring job, but as you get older, I’m sure you’ll appreciate having your family images in digital format that’s easy to view and share. Like Curtis, I have no idea how old you are now, but I’m in my early 60s and lost my parents over 30 years ago. I’ve hundreds of family photos to eventually get scanned but by far the majority of them are of people I don’t know names for. Since I’m one of the older generation in my family now, there are few, if any, relatives I can call on for help in identifying individuals in these pictures. In addition to the notes you’ve kept about what you’ve done, I hope you’ve been able to identify all of the people and locations in the photos you’ve so far scanned, as well as in the ones still to be done. If you have family members who can help with identifications, perhaps a series of afternoon or evening sessions as a family gathering could increase your interest and involvement with the scanning project.
Rather than write on actual photos, you might try doing rough sketches on regular bond paper to show an outline of the people in each photo, then add a letter or number to each outline and provide a key on the same sheet of paper as to who’s who –‘A’ is — —-, mother/father/son/daughter/etc. to ‘B’ who is — —- and so on, filling in the dashes here with actual names. Keep these identification sheets with the respective photos and scan them along with the photos when you get to them. If you have a program like Photoshop Elements or Photoshop, which supports layers, you can copy and paste the identification image as a new layer above your scanned image background layer. By clicking on the ‘eyeball’ icon in the layers palette of these programs, you can toggle the visibility of the ID layer on and off, so if you just want to see the photo, you’d turn off the ID layer. To see the names, just click the eyeball again. If you wanted to, the background of the ID layer could be made transparent so you’d only see the actual text and outlines over the photo. To be able to see the names and sketch at the same time as the photo, you could enlarge the ‘canvas size’ of the photo to be able to paste the ID information to one side of or above or below the actual image and re-save the file with a new name to indicate that names are included.
One trick to speed up the scanning process is to sort your photos into groups by size and landscape or portrait orientation. Further refine these groups by color or black and white; and by correctly exposed, over exposed, or under exposed. If you try to scan an organized group of photos each session, you’ll spend less time per scan because you can set your scanner’s crop tool and exposure adjustment for one image, then make only a few minor adjustments if needed, instead of needing to make all these settings individually for each photo.
Another time-saver: decide the largest size you’ll ever likely want to print any image at, including the possibility of having a 20×30″ poster printed commercially, then scan at the largest appropriate resolution and quality settings available with your scanner hardware and software so you only need to scan once. You can always reduce a scan’s resolution and file size for particular needs, such as email or posting on a web site with little loss of image quality but if you scan at too low a resolution or other quality setting, you won’t likely be happy with the results of re-scaling the original to a larger size so you’ll need to go back and re-scan. The extra storage space required for the larger, high quality scans done once, is relatively cheap when you consider the space requirements of the low quality scans, plus the time spent scanning and later re-scanning, plus the storage space requirements of the high quality scans done at a later time. If you have the option of saving a DNG (Adobe’s Digital NeGative) format file, as you can with VueScan Pro, save your original, high quality scans in this format. The DNG format stores all of the information your scanner can capture so you can go back at any future time and adjust/re-adjust your color balance, exposure, etc. without needing to re-scan.
When you’ve scanned a number of photos and can fill a CD or DVD with images, an extra copy would be a nice ‘thank you’ gift for those who helped with the identification process. There are several inexpensive, easy-to-use, programs available for both Macs and Windows computers that let you create slide shows that can be burned to DVD, with or without commentary and/or sound effects and music, to be played back on regular TVs instead of just on a computer. Such a slide show DVD would be a simple holiday gift for any family member. Future generations will likely also appreciate such genealogy information to help them learn about earlier family members.
Who knows, maybe you’d find one or more volunteers to help with the scanning and archiving project, if you managed to get others involved with the work load.
Good luck with the scanning and keep plugging away at it.
Art Taylor