tomazdrnovsek

I started the process with my current scanner. I decided on 600 dpi JPGs.

Thank you all for the comments! It made the whole topic a lot clearer to me.

Of course, I'm still open to more suggestions.

Do you mind me asking, what is the intended purpose and outcome of this exercise ? Is it just to hopefully protect the collection, to share on CD with other family members, to assist in genealogy research - or what ? Just curious.

Just to protect the collection and have all my photos in digital form in a cloud.

The major difference between JPEG and TIFF, is that the JPEG colour is 'palletised' into tiles of a few pixels each. These little squares can be seen if the saturation or contrast is boosted to an extreme. JPEGs also embed a degree of sharpening that can't usually be controlled, whereas the TIFF format should allow flexibility in the degree of sharpness applied.

I did this exact text with extreme values but couldn't find any difference between jpg and tiff... in my specific case. I know tiff is a much better format in general and provides the benefits you described.

Scanning to JPEG instead of TIFF is okay if you make the major adjustments in the scanner software before scanning. The scanned file should then be very close to ideal and require only minor adjustments that won't reveal the limitations of an 8-bit JPEG file. I've scanned thousands of prints this way. But the scanner software included with all-in-one (AIO) printer/scanners may not allow you to make many adjustments before scanning. Switch to "Advanced Mode" or "Manual Mode" if it has one.

I can't make any adjustments prior to scanning in the printer software. Also, it would take me way too much time to do that for every picture or batch of pictures. I have like 20 years' worth of pictures which differ very much in quality, colors, the paper that are printed on, etc. I'm much more familiar and proficient with Photoshop.

Thank you for the advice!

I actually meant use both programs to scan a JPEG from the same print, to compare like with like - is that possible ?

Oh. I thought you'll look if the tiff format actually brings anything to the table in my case since I couldn't find any difference.

I'll do it this weekend with JPGs when I'm at home. Thanks.

I've never compared the two programs, so I would presume that you have reached the limit of either what the scanner can produce, unfortunately, or possibly the limitations of the prints which you are scanning. If you could post a few of the JPG images from each program (re-sized for PN, of course, but otherwise unedited), it may be possible to make further suggestions, please.

Since I can't upload TIFF format here I dropped both files (JPG and TIFF) to WeTransfer. Here's the link: HPscan.jpg and 1 more file

JPG file is from default HP Smart program and TIFF is from VueScan.

Surely using Vuescan would give the possibility of TIFF output, if the scanner can work with it, and vice versa ?

I tried Vuescan. Although it did provide TIFF output format there is absolutely no difference between TIFF (24bit RGB) and JPG files (from default HP Smart program) apart from file size - JPG beeing 2MB anfd TIFF being 10MB. One would think 10MB would contain more data therefore it would provide more flexibility when editing it in Photoshop but after doing the same corrections in Photoshop to JPG and TIFF (saturation, contrast, blacks, whites,... doing it right and also going to extreme values etc) there was absolutely no difference... at all. I wonder why this is - maybe it's the limitation of the scanner or the default JPG that HP program provides out of the box is already good enough and comparable to TIFF?

Surely using Vuescan would give the possibility of TIFF output, if the scanner can work with it, and vice versa ?

Never heard of that. Thanks, I'll check it out.

I'd be more concerned about the colour quality of the scans, since that all-in-one possibly only delivers 8 bit JPEGs, which might be a bit limiting as to the amount of colour and saturation correction you can make. Whereas 16 bit TIFF files, if available, will give you more colour leeway to work with.

 

I went through this exercise of scanning minilab-quality 6x4 prints some years ago. In most cases the scan could actually be made to give better and more accurate colour than the original print. I also found that scanning at > 600 ppi was pretty much a waste of time.

 

The only output options are PDF and JPG. I assume PDF is just JPG embedded into PDF.

I decided to go ahead and do the 600 ppi JPG since I don't have access to anything considerably better. I agree, TIFF would be much better for Photoshop work but sadly that's not an option.

I have like 20 huge photo albums with tons of photographs from my youth. I also have a very affordable All-in-1 printer and scanner (HP DeskJet Ink Advantage 4535). I want to scan all the photos and store them in Google Photos (original quality uploads). I also have pretty good knowledge in Photoshop and I intend to retouch them a bit if necessary. This is going to be a lot of work. I just want to know if scanner like that is sufficient for this job? It's obvious better scanners would produce better images but how much better really? Most photographs are 4x6 in (10x15 cm) shot on film from 1980s on not very expensive cameras. I did some test scans and images look ok but since I have nothing to compare them to I can't really know.