How to Save Your Family Photos Electronically

Step-by-Step Guide

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   Step 1: Purchase a good quality flatbed scanner.

   These are pretty reasonable in price now.
   
   You can get something that will do a great job for under $100.00 at most any retail store.
   
   Follow the instructions and install the accompanying software on your computer and physically connect (or wirelessly) your scanner to your computer.
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   Step 2: Gather your photo collection.

   This can be A) very daunting, and B) extremely intimidating.
   
   Take a shot at it, one (1) album or group of photos at a time. (Make sure you come up with a way to identify each album or group of photos as complete once scanned.
   
   This is simple you can attached a label to the album, or group, or put them in a completed location, several options, use your imagination). , This is another external cost that is minimal when it comes to the loss of your photos.
   
   You can get a very large external hard drive for well under $100.00 at any electronics retailer or online.
   
   Depending on the # of photos you have, you may benefit from dedicating an external hard drive to photo storage. , Within this program you will be able to adjust the settings and tell the scanner and computer where to store your scanned photos.
   
   If you are following my steps above, you would browse and find your external hard drive, and place it as the default save location for your scans. , You have to find a happy medium; you may choose to scan at a lower DPI (300
   - 400) because when printing, this allows for very nice prints without eating up massive amounts of storage. , This can be done by browsing your computer and verifying that your photos are where you expect them to be. , Once you have a group of photos digitized, you can go into the folder with the photos and name them individually as you wish, by right clicking on the photo and either changing the name (PC), or going to Get Info (MAC) and changing the name. , The hard part is over, now you can rest assured that you have multiple copies of your photos spread across multiple locations, so as to avert disasters in one location by creating multiple copies and placing in various locations.
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   Step 3: Ensure that you have ample storage space on your computer.

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   Step 4: Follow the setup instructions that come with your external hard drive for connecting it to you computer

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   Step 5: then open the software program that came with your scanner.

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   Step 6: Verify that your scanner is set to optimize photos

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   Step 7: just remember that the greater DPI (Dots per inch) setting you use

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   Step 8: the better quality you will have if you go to print later

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   Step 9: however

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    Step 10: conversely

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    Step 11: the greater amount of storage will be required per scanned photo.

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    Step 12: Once you scan your first set or group of photos

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    Step 13: verify that they are in fact saving to the location you chose.

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    Step 14: At this point the process becomes pretty monotonous

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    Step 15: you simply go through

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    Step 16: photo by photo

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    Step 17: load them onto your scanner

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    Step 18: scan them in accordingly

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    Step 19: and verify that they are saving where you want them to save.

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    Step 20: Once you are done with all your photos

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    Step 21: you can choose to clone your hard drive

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    Step 22: or make additional copies onto additional hard drives

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    Step 23: or even DVD's and you can share those copies between family members

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    Step 24: or others that you trust for safe keeping.

Detailed Guide

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