Digital Copying of Old Photos - Workflow
The following is how I specifically do digital copying with my own camera.
- Lay the photo album on a flat floor that gets unobstructed (i.e. shadowless) light. This is best done on a bright overcast day.
- Mount the camera upside down on the tripod (so that it is facing down).
- Using a small level, make sure that the camera is level (i.e. parallel to the photos)
- Turn the camera on
- I leave the contrast, saturation and sharpening at mid levels. Purists will turn sharpening off and do all their sharpening using photo software.
- Set the camera to Av mode (aperture priority) with an f-stop of 5.6 (this increases depth of field - while still allowing exposure bracketing)
- Set the camera to auto-bracket the exposure by +/- 2/3 f-stop (my camera can do this automatically - but it can also be done manually)
- Set the camera to ISO 50 (or whatever lowest setting you have)
- Set the camera to largest file size at highest resolution
- Position the camera so that the largest photo fills the screen with the camera at slight zoom (this is the 10mm setting on mine - equivalent to about a 50mm lens on a 35mm camera). This is to get rid of possible edge distortion
- Set the camera into macro mode
- Set the camera into self-timer mode
- Turn off the flash
- Press the shutter button (the use of the self-timer will eliminate camera shake induced by pressing the button). With my camera, it will take 3 photos in a row (3 different exposures).
Hints:
- Move the photos under the camera (i.e. never move the camera and tripod)
- If you have mixed sizes of photos, you may have to lower the camera to capture the smaller ones at full frame with slight zoom. The only downside of more zoom to fill the frame, is that as the camera lens goes into more telephoto mode, the depth of field (area of focus) decreases. This is fine if the photos are perfectly flat and parallel to the camera lens, but if the album is a bit warped, or you are not exactly parallel, then increased depth of field can help to compensate for this.
Post-Processing
- Once the photos are taken, I leave the setup exactly as is (in case I have to re-shoot), I just remove the camera and download the images to my computer.
- I then check (I use BreezeBrowser) the photos to make sure they all look reasonably okay. It sometimes pays to cross-reference these with the photo album to make sure you didn't leave any out. If an exposure/focus is botched, or a page/photo is missed, now is the time to re-shoot them.
- I then generally do a quick edit, deleting 1 of the 3 exposures of each image (usually easy to see which exposure didn't work). Keep in mind while editing what the subject is - in most cases it is the people in the photo, so don't worry about how the background or foreground is exposed, concentrate on the person's face.
- I backup these photos to a CD-RW or DVD-RW (purists will back up before any edits and keep the full 3 exposure set). Once backed up - I can then delete the photos on the camera's memory card.
- I digitally label the photos using IPTC data (more extended labelling may come later after you have had help from relatives in identifying all the photos - but on a first pass I try to get all the info that is present in the album, or from the back of the photos).
- I then (perhaps a few days later - whenever I'm in the mood) do a serious edit of the photos. This means loading them into a photo program that provides full editing capabilities and supports IPTC data (i.e. a program such as Adobe Photoshop Elements that comes with many digital cameras). Then I tweak each photo.
- Before I start, I copy my photos from their original folders to a new set of folders. My original folders are chronological, for instance I have a folder called 2005 and within that my photos are stored in folders named 2005-01, 2005-02, 2005-03, etc. The new folders are based on topics - for instance aunt-millies-photoalbum1, tims-6th-birthday, etc. These reside within year chronological folders (i.e. 2005/tims-6th-birthday). I copy all my "keepers" to these new topic folder. All my photo editing will be done with the copies in the topic folders. If I make a mistake, I can always retrieve my original "negatives" which are in my chronological folders. NEVER EDIT YOUR ORIGINAL PHOTOS - they are your "negatives".
- I load a photo from my topic folder into my photo editing program. If I plan doing multiple edits, I'll do a "Save As" of the photo to a new filename (usually just add a "-e" to the original filename) and save it in a lossless format (TIF). So an original such as "359-6826.jpg" becomes "359-6826-e.tif". This simply identifies photos I've edited.
- Then, I check to see if the photo needs cropping.
- Once cropped, I usually first test several of the enhancement features that many photo program offer. This includes testing "Auto levels" / "Auto balance" feature which sets the white and black points to their maximum, the "Auto Color" and the "Auto Contrast". These auto features works well with some photos, but not with others. Most photo programs offer an "undo" feature making it easy to test an option and then undo it if it didn't work out.
- If overall shadow details need enhancing, I use the "Shadows and Highlights" tool offered in Adobe Photoshop. If you aren't using a program with this feature, a manual technique known as "contrast masking" can be used.
- If the brightness needs adjusting, I use the "curves" option to lighten or darken the photo. Sometimes called "Tone Curve" it gives you better control than simply using a brightness or gamma adjustment.
- For spot brightening or darkening, use the Burn and Dodge tools.
- If there are marks/scratches on the photo, many of these can be removed using the "clone" or "rubber stamp" tool found in good photo programs.
- Once all the touch-up edits have been done, the photo can be sharpened. I use a commercial sharpening program, but within good photo programs the best option is usually the "unsharp mask" or "adaptive unsharpening".
- My final step is to complete the IPTC captioning (with info gathered from relatives) and then I use BreezeBrowser to "proof" the photos with the caption information. It is these proofed photos that are used for computer slide shows and emailing.
At the end of the day, I end up with three sets of photos. The unedited originals (in either JPEG, RAW or TIF format), a set of edited TIF files and a set of smaller (usually with maximum 750 pixels horizontal dimension and 600 pixel vertical dimension) JPEG captioned files (the main distribution photos). If you want larger or smaller captioned photos in the future, you just have to go back to your edited TIF files and generate a new set of "proofs". If you get better software, or learn more advanced photo editing skills, you can always go back to your unedited originals (these are your "negatives") to create a new set of edited photos. For archiving, I save all three sets on at least two CD-Rs or DVD-Rs (read the note on the main page about what type to use).
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