Picasa Tip: Scanning Old Photos
Do you have a scanner and some old photos you want to scan? Have you started to read the manual and given up on figuring it out? I have good news for you! You don’t have to figure out the software that came with the scanner, because Picasa can handle it all for you, it’s just like importing from your camera but, instead of camera, you import from the scanner.
**News Flash**
Google Announces
Picasa for the Macintosh!
ok – back to the topic …
I was visiting my Mom’s and we started looking at old pictures. Between the two of us we could identify most of them and I wanted to preserve them. She has one of those all-in-one printer-copier-scanners. So, here’s what I did:
- Make sure everything is connected and turned on!
- Put the photo on the glass of the scanner – face down
- In Picasa, click ‘Import’
- Click the arrow for the drop down list of devices. You should see your scanner listed … select it
- Now you will see a screen that depends on your scanner. There should be an option to ‘Preview’. Click that.
- You should now see your picture, there may be some settings you want to change here, but if it looks OK then
- Click the button to Scan
- When it’s done scanning, you’re back at the standard Picasa Import screen. Click Import all.
- Select a folder to put it in. I made a folder called ‘Old Photos’ for the first one, then, for each subsequent scanned photo, I selected that existing folder from the drop-down list.
I scanned 53 old photos in this manner. It took me somewhat over an hour. Then I just took another few seconds to use Batch Edit and do an ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ and ‘Sharpen’ to all 53 at once. I think the results are great. What do you think?
This is a photo from circa 1962 – me at 10 years old in Alaska. It looks better than the original!
GOT Class Members can also view related videos:
Importing from Camera
Sharpen and Batch Edit
Basic Editing Features
Retouching
Related posts:
3 Comments to Picasa Tip: Scanning Old Photos
Leave a Reply
Subscribe to Weekly Picasa Tip
Search
Categories
- Edit/Improve Photos (17)
- Getting Started (13)
- ▼Organizing (32)
- Backup and Tree View 03/03
- Backup! Backup! Backup! 09/15
- Combining Stars and Tags 09/22
- Don't Delete your Original Photos 05/17
- Don't Delete your Original Photos 05/17
- Find Pictures by Date 03/11
- Five Deadly Sins of Picasa 01/07
- Importing and Folders 02/02
- Moving Folders with Picasa 10/28
- Organizing with Sortable Dates 04/22
- People Albums – View Whole Picture 02/08
- Picasa 3.5 Import Screen 10/06
- Picasa 3.5 released 09/23
- Picasa 3.5: How to Turn Off Face Recognition 09/29
- Picasa Tip: “Cancel unfinished operations?” 04/14
- Picasa Tip: Different ways to Save 08/04
- Picasa Tip: Finding Duplicate Pictures 01/13
- Picasa Tip: Folders and Subfolders 06/03
- Picasa Tip: How folders get Dated 03/04
- Picasa Tip: Import from Camera 02/17
- Picasa Tip: Keeping Pictures in Order 05/13
- Picasa Tip: Photos as Wallpaper 02/03
- Picasa Tip: Picture Information 09/02
- Picasa Tip: Scanning Old Photos 01/06
- Picasa Tip: Screen Captures 04/01
- Picasa Tip: Search by Color 07/08
- Picasa Tip: To Save or Not to Save 02/11
- Picasa Tip: Use Albums 12/30
- Picasa Tip: Use Captions 01/27
- Picasa Tip: When your pictures get "All Messed UP" 01/20
- Storing Pictures on an External Hard Drive 06/30
- Using Albums and Temporary Albums 02/18
- Photo (4)
- ▼Picasa (76)
- Backup and Tree View 03/03
- Backup! Backup! Backup! 09/15
- Better Pictures 10/14
- Capture One Shot from a Video 01/30
- Combining Stars and Tags 09/22
- Congratulations on your eBook Purchase! 11/19
- Cover Slides and Collages 12/10
- Dark Photo? Use Fill Light 09/09
- Do you take crooked photos? 11/24
- Don't Delete your Original Photos 05/17
- Don't Delete your Original Photos 05/17
- Emailing Photos with Picasa 05/02
- Find Pictures by Date 03/11
- Five Deadly Sins of Picasa 01/07
- Framing a Picture 12/29
- Importing and Folders 02/02
- Managing Digital Photos with Google's Picasa 01/15
- Moving Folders with Picasa 10/28
- People Albums – View Whole Picture 02/08
- Picasa 3 and Video Files 12/04
- Picasa 3.5 Import Screen 10/06
- Picasa 3.5 released 09/23
- Picasa 3.5: How to Turn Off Face Recognition 09/29
- Picasa Book updated to Version 3.5 11/19
- Picasa Tip: “Cancel unfinished operations?” 04/14
- Picasa Tip: 4 Clicks to Dramatically Improve your Photos 06/10
- Picasa Tip: A Picasa Plug-In for Live-Writer 07/14
- Picasa Tip: Add a Watermark to your photos 11/11
- Picasa Tip: Automatic Updates 11/19
- Picasa Tip: Blue Skies 05/06
- Picasa Tip: Cut thru the Haze 08/20
- Picasa Tip: Different ways to Save 08/04
- Picasa Tip: Download photos from a Web Album 06/24
- Picasa Tip: Fill-in Preprinted Forms 03/10
- Picasa Tip: Finding Duplicate Pictures 01/13
- Picasa Tip: Flipping Photos 03/19
- Picasa Tip: Folders and Subfolders 06/03
- Picasa Tip: How folders get Dated 03/04
- Picasa Tip: I'm Feeling Lucky 04/07
- Picasa Tip: Import from Camera 02/17
- Picasa Tip: Keeping Pictures in Order 05/13
- Picasa Tip: Make a Banner Collage 12/23
- Picasa Tip: Make a Movie 07/29
- Picasa Tip: Make your own Photo Holiday Cards 11/04
- Picasa Tip: Moving folders to a USB Hard Drive 11/25
- Picasa Tip: Nested Folders 12/02
- Picasa Tip: Out of Focus? I meant that! 01/13
- Picasa Tip: Outdoor-Indoor Collage 03/24
- Picasa Tip: Photos as Wallpaper 02/03
- Picasa Tip: Picasa to Facebook 06/19
- Picasa Tip: Picasa Web Albums 02/24
- Picasa Tip: Picture Information 09/02
- Picasa Tip: Printing options, White Borders 08/12
- Picasa Tip: Save Edits and Resize with Export 10/28
- Picasa Tip: Scanning Old Photos 01/06
- Picasa Tip: Screen Captures 04/01
- Picasa Tip: Search by Color 07/08
- Picasa Tip: Synchronized Web Albums 04/28
- Picasa Tip: To Save or Not to Save 02/11
- Picasa Tip: Use Albums 12/30
- Picasa Tip: Use Captions 01/27
- Picasa Tip: Using the text tool 04/22
- Picasa Tip: Web Albums default settings 12/16
- Picasa Tip: What happened to Sharpen? 05/28
- Picasa Tip: When your pictures get "All Messed UP" 01/20
- Picasa tip: Your photos as Screensaver 12/09
- Picasa Tip:Making a Panorama 05/20
- Professional Prints 10/14
- Resizing Photo Files 07/22
- Sharpening Photos with Picasa 07/23
- Storing Pictures on an External Hard Drive 06/30
- Taking Video with your Laptop’s Camera 01/22
- Upgrading to Picasa 3.6 12/11
- Using Albums and Temporary Albums 02/18
- Webinar for Beginners to Picasa 11/29
- You have a Digital Camera ... Now What? 10/25
- picasa web albums (7)
- Sharing Photos (11)
- Show-Me Video (4)
- Special Features (6)
- ▼Videos (12)
- Capture One Shot from a Video 01/30
- Picasa 3 and Video Files 12/04
- Picasa Tip: Cut thru the Haze 08/20
- Picasa Tip: Make a Movie 07/29
- Picasa Tip: Scanning Old Photos 01/06
- Picasa Tip: To Save or Not to Save 02/11
- Picasa Tip: Use Albums 12/30
- Picasa Tip: Use Captions 01/27
- Picasa Tip: When your pictures get "All Messed UP" 01/20
- Picasa tip: Your photos as Screensaver 12/09
- Picasa Tip:Making a Panorama 05/20
- Taking Video with your Laptop’s Camera 01/22
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
- Find Pictures by Date | Picasa Tutorials on Picasa Tip: How folders get Dated
- Find Pictures by Date | Picasa Tutorials on Using Albums and Temporary Albums
- Chris Guld on Picasa Tip: Different ways to Save
- Tim Yap on Picasa Tip: Different ways to Save
- Chris Guld on Picasa 3.5: How to Turn Off Face Recognition
Chris, we just got a big box of old pictures out last evening and started sorting them! Watch our blog and we’ll soon have a few of them on display!
We had a cousins party at one of their homes. The cousins came from all over the south. The point of a cousins party is as we were growing up and we visited each other, we took their pictures and they took ours and then went home. So if you had a big family and they were always taking out the “Kodak” there are probably some very nice shots of you own family that never got to your house. I prefer Photodex over Picasa, it too and most programs that are Twain compatible will make a scan. Keep up the good work, we hope to be full time soon when whe sell our Computer Store 23 years is enough!
One more comment I have found the best way to scan is to sort the photos on size of the photo. That way you won’t have to preview scan ever photo and it won’t leave extra white platen that takes up space, yeah I know you can trim them but it takes a long time to trim them up.
Keep up the good work!
[...] forum about scanning a preprinted form. A past Picasa tip explains how you can scan things just using your scanner and Picasa – no scanner software to learn. This member needed to scan a preprinted form and she was [...]