Heirloom Quality Digital Restoration
of Photographs and Documents

If you are scanning the original or requesting someone else to do it, here are recommended scanner settings along with a brief explanation.

First - Disable any scanner functions like auto brightness, contrast, color correction, etc.

Resolution – The input resolution depends on the size of the original and final print. The goal is to provide a 600 DPI file to the printer. If the desired print size is the same as the original size, the optimal input resolution is 600 DPI. If the desired print size is larger than the original, then the input resolution must be increased in order to wind up with 600 DPI at the final size. For example, let’s say the original is 4” x 5” and the desired print size is 8” x 10”. The magnification factor required is 2 (8/4 or 10/5) which means the input resolution must be 2 * 600 = 1200 DPI. If you’re not sure what resolution to use, give us a call.

Color vs. BW – Always scan the original in color, even if it is a Black & White print. In most cases, the amount of information is different in each color channel. For example, water stains may be more dominant in the blue or green channel than in the red. Color information provides the possibility of reducing the discoloration by selective mixing of color channels.

Color depth – Many scanners can be configured to capture either 8 or 16 bits of brightness information per color. Eight bits means there can be up to 256 different brightness levels per color. Capturing 16 bits increases the number of levels to 65,536. Enough said?

Color Space – Color information communicated between computer systems is based on a Color Space. There are quite a few standards and some are capable of communicating more colors than others. Our preference is Adobe RGB 1998.

File type – For images, there are several file formats in use, but the most common are JPG and TIF. We recommend TIF since it supports 16 bit brightness levels and has fewer distortions caused by compression. The penalty for these quality advantages is larger file size, however, we feel it’s worth it. If TIF is not possible for some reason, JPG is the next best. JPG can be configured for different quality levels so make sure the maximum quality setting is used.