Scanning log: settings and batches
The settings you scan at, written once so every batch matches, and one row per box, album or envelope as it is scanned, with whether the backs and captions are done and where the originals went.
The settings sheet is essential once you scan anything; the batches sheet is optional on a first pass of 20 prints. A reader who skips the settings may scan next year's box at different settings from this year's and not know it. If you have no prints, slides or negatives, this page can wait. The settings and their reasons are in Prints, slides and negatives.
Scan settings
Write the settings once and use them for every batch, so a box scanned next year matches this one.
Batches
One row per box, album, envelope or carousel. Number the envelope or box, not the photos.
How to use this sheet
- Settings once, batches many times. The settings sheet holds one answer per line; the batches sheet holds one row per box, album, envelope or carousel.
- Number the container, not the photos. Write on the envelope or the box, never on the face of a print, and on the back only lightly in soft pencil near the edge.
- Ticks are what you did. "Backs captured" means the backs with writing were scanned or photographed; "captions done" means the scans have who, what, where and when, or questions on the open questions sheet.
- Where the originals went is the column a relative will need. A box in an interior closet, labeled, is the target in storing the originals.
The example row is from Ruth Feldman's shoebox (fictional): 20 prints from a 1971 beach trip, scanned at 600 ppi, the three backs with writing scanned too, captions not done because her cousin Miriam Katz is still to name the people, and the prints back in an archival box in the hall closet. Her settings sheet says 600 ppi for prints and 3000 ppi for Arthur's slides, which at this manual's settings make about 26 MB per 4 by 6 print as an uncompressed TIFF (the scan calculator works it out).
The log records what was scanned and where the originals went; it does not judge whether a scan is good. Prints that are stuck, moldy, cracked, curled tight, on glass or metal, and early film go to a conservator, not into a batch; see wet, moldy or stuck photos. The settings are this manual's conventions from named institutions, not a rule that one number is right.