Photos to Digital – Photo Scanning Resolution Matters

Photo scanners have a variety of different settings that can be changed for different reasons. It is important to know these settings before leaving your photos to be digitized at a Photo Scanning Center.

You should always use a scanner that is meant for scanning photos. Don’t use a document scanner that you may see at office supplies stores. These are used for scanning black and white text documents. Scanners dedicated to digitizing photos will let you achieve the original sharpness and quality of the photo. and will allow you to chose different scanning resolutions which will affect the overall quality and sharpness of the photo. Photo scanners will also allow you to choose settings that will affect the resolution of the digitized photos.

The resolution you choose on your scanner changes for different reasons and uses of your digitized photo. The resolution refers to the photo’s DPI, or dots per inch. The DPI tells you how many pixels are found on the digitized photo. Higher DPIs will result in more pixels, a larger file and higher quality results.

The following are the most common used photo scanning resolutions. Starting on the low end, the scanner can be set to 72 DPI. This resolution is suitable for online viewing. It results in a very small sized photo which is beneficial for sharing online with friends or sending through email.

300 DPI is used when you are printing your photos. Although printing is capable at this level, it still may not be the quality you are looking for.

600 DPI is also used for printing, but is much sharper and detailed. This is the standard for printing photos and suitable for enlargement. Photo labs typically charge extra for scanning at resolution because the process takes longer, but it’s worth the extra money. At Play It Again Video, 600 is the default scanning resolution and we don’t charge extra for it.

The last commonly used resolution is 1,200 DPI. This is usually used for art made by professional artists. Historic artifacts such as an aged family document may also be scanned at this level.

Before you drop off your pictures to be digitized, consider the choices you have and what you are scanning your photos for. If printing, you need 300 DPI but you should choose 600 DPI for clearer and sharper images. Most importantly it is essential to see that the scanning center is using a dedicated photo scanner instead of an auto-feed document scanner.