Date:  September 7, 2019

The whole box contains all our hard copies of photos during the time where there were NO iPhones or Smart phones!

Back in the old days, we use cameras with films.  Each roll of film is either 12, 24 or 36.  Somehow, we developed the skill of posing a good pose for photographs.  Compared to now the era of smart phones, instead of taking one single photo of a pose, we can take 4, 5 or 10s photos of the same pose.  hahahaha

So, all these are memories of our past.  So, what do we do about it?

Well, the easy option is to scan them into digital photos and keep them safe on the Internet or Synology NAS (for me, at least).

So, after Google for a while and finally, I selected what most of the people recommended, especially recommended by many photographers.  According to them, the scan quality and resolutions are good!  And the colour is excellent, very close to the original photos.

Let’s try out.

Stupid me, was scanning the old photos 1-by-1.

My clever son walked by, see what I was doing, and suddenly he asked: “Daddy, why don’t you scan few photos at a time instead of doing it 1-by-1”.

I think think a bit.

“Oh ya hor!”

Then, I start scanning it 3 or 4 at a time.

Why didn’t I think of that at the first place?

So, now, I can scan 3 or 4 photos at a time, so, it makes my photo digitising job 3-4 times faster.  So, you got an scanned image of 3 in one file.

The photos you scanned must be the same size as what it digitised into.

It cannot be bigger than your actual photos.

No matter what DPI you choose, the size of the picture cannot be bigger than your actual photos.  That is why you can put 3-4 photos and scan it.

I chose 600dpi.  It gives a nice 500K-1M file.  Of course, the scanner capability can go up to 1200 or higher, but bear in mind the picture size will be the same as photo.  And the DPI is only to digitise it with more pixels or less pixels.

See… same size.

Do you also notice that the epson software will auto correct the white balance and color too.  So, if you look at the actual photos, it is a bit warmer.  But after it scanned, it becomes more vibrant the colour.  That is why a lot of photographers like this scanner.

Well, you can use your whatever Samsung or HP printer that comes with scanner.  But bear in mind, those printers are made for document.  Whereas Epson build this V600 for photo scanning.

So, my work flow is like this.

If my single scan has 3 photos.  Then, I will make 2 more copies of the same photo and renamed it with additional numbers in the file name.  Then, you drag it into photo app.

Then, one by one, you crop the photos for different picture.

Please take a look at the scan quality, it is like what Google research says, it is excellent!

Enjoy my younger university life @ St. John’s Newfoundland, Canada.  Wahahaha

This is actually taken in front of my high school, Foon Yew High School in Johor Bahru Malaysia.  This is my give away photos during graduation day.  Hahaha that is why I signed my name there.  hahaha

Wow, the students from overseas who study in Memorial University of Newfoundland.  Some of Malaysia, some from Hong Kong.

This is before university at Grade 13, Hamilton @ Columbia Secondary School in Canada.

I remember buying my first winter coat.

Wow, graduation photos.  This is from Grade 13 graduation.

Room mates in a town house in Hamilton.

Receiving the Grade 13 cert from the headmaster at Columbia Secondary School @ Hamilton Ontario Canada.

Oh ya, forgot to tell you this… because you are doing the crop photo thingy.  So, don’t forget you can crop any size to keep the digitised photos.  You can crop to remove those unwanted area and make your composition even better ya.

Yeap, don’t need to crop the full photo one.

After cropping it, the composition is nicer.

This house mate is from Singapore.  Got time I will try to hunt him down on Facebook.

Can’t really remember who is this chap.

School mate or teacher?

More graduation photos.

We all look so young during those days.

Where I stay in Hamilton Ontario.

Again… schoolmate.

Some Police station in Toronto China town I guess.

More graduation photos.

Some Kung Fu pose.  Wah, during those days we really can pose anything ya.

Looks like having a drink in CN tower Toronto.

Now we switched to my 21st birthday at St. John’s New Foundland.

Oh, I went to Vancouver to visit my Primary + Secondary good buddy!  She vacation in Vancouver during the 125th Canadian Birthday year.

My 20th birthday in St. John’s Newfoundland.

I think in one of the mall in Newfoundland.

I like to cook.  So, cooking for every one.  Either 5 or 8 pax per day.  Some time my ex-girlfriend will come up and eat.  Hahahahaha

Don’t know which birthday.

Last time the round round spec is a in-thing.

We stayed in 277 Elizabeth Ave for many many years.  I think 6 years.

Not sure where, may be Quebec.

This is graduation for University I think.

Toronto Wonderland.

Hamilton bunk.

Outside 277 Elizabeth Avenue.  Behind is Memorial University of Newfoundland.

In Newfoundland but not sure where.

I think we are playing Duke Nukem.

Vancouver.

Wah… Look like gay wor… Kenneth Liew and Kenneth Soo.  Hahahahaha

My housemate at 277 Elizabeth Ave.

I was that young.  hahahaha

Me and my son was looking at my old photos, and he was quite amaze with it, how I look when I was young.

And of course, This Epson Perfection V600 scanner is one of the best hardware to scan all the old photos and digitise it.

The scanner is long and a bit huge.

But it does the job perfectly as it’s name.  “Perfection”

As you can see the photo scans above, the quality of the scans are really nice.

Good bye.

I think it will take me a couple weeks to completely digitised my photos.

Every day 50-100 scans and soon, I will have all my childhood, university wild time all these precious memory scanned into my photo apps.

More Tips

• The scanning work flow is faster than your importing and cropping.  So, take your own sweet time ya.  Have fun to remember “Where I took these photos?” “When?”
• Actually, I leave everything to “Auto Mode”.  I tried set the dpi to 1200 and it takes 1-2min to scan the photos.  Although the pixel is more, but the size of your photos already fix.  So, no need to fix so many pixels in it.
• The Dust Removal and Color Restoration is set here.  I ticked both of them so that they can restore the colour using their AI?

• I choose to save directly onto my Synology photo backup drive.  And my photo backup drive will automatically back up to another Synology at home, and remotely backup to my friend’s Larry’s Synology located in my office.  Hahaha a bit Kia Su.
• You can choose to save it to bigger uncompressed file, but for me, it is enough for JPEG.

• Try to do it while you are still hot with it.  Because it is easier for you to find in the Photo app.  (sorted by dates).  You can put every photos into the album too.

Oh, one last thing, you can use some app that can really do the cropping.  The one I did is kind of stupid where I duplicate the picture files 3 or 4 times and import the same file into photo app.  And when you do cropping in photo app, they still keep the original size.  So, just be aware about that.