How to Scan Lots of Pictures Into a Computer

Save all of your old photographs to your computer with a scanner.

People acquire hundreds, sometimes thousands, of pictures over a lifetime. One way to preserve these valuable keepsakes is to scan the pictures into a computer. Once you scan a picture, you can make inexpensive copies for friends and family from the computer. Scanning a lot of pictures at once can take a lot of time, especially if there are years of images to load in the computer. You can follow a few tips to help speed up the process.

Things You'll Need

• Computer with Windows XP or higher
• Multipass page scanner or standard scanner

Instructions

Multipass Page Scanner

1. Start your computer's scanner program. Set the scanner setting to 200 dpi. This will lessen the picture quality but speed up the scanning process. This quality is good for pictures 10 inches or smaller.

2. Arrange your pictures and stack them in layers by size. Place all pictures with the image facing up.

3. Load a stack of five pictures into the multipass bin on the scanner. Adjust the multipass holder to the size of the stack of pictures. This will automatically pull your pictures through the scanner and scan the images into the computer. This will allow you to free up your hands to organize more pictures for scanning.

Standard Scanner

1. Start your computer's scanner program. Set the scanner setting to 200 dpi. This will decrease the picture quality but speed up the scanning process. This quality is good for pictures 10 inches or smaller in size.

2. Arrange your pictures into stacks according to size. Lay as many pictures as you can face-down on the scanner's glass palette. Click the "Scan" button on the scanner, or click the "Scan" icon on the computer screen.

3. Open the folder or area on the computer where your scanned pictures are and click on one of the scanned pages of pictures. If you want the images separated, open the snipping tool program by clicking on "Start," "All Programs," "Accessories" then "Snipping Tool." Pull a square around the image and click on it. The program will ask if you want to save the image. Re-name the image and click "OK."

Tips & Warnings

• If you don't have a Snipping Tools program, go to the Bluefive web site (see Resources) and download the program. It is a free program that works like the Snipping Tool program.

References

• Vue Scan: Batch Scanning Tips

Resources

• Bluefive Software: Snap Shot-Screen Capture Tool