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.

Using Picasa's Import Command with Your Scanner

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:

1. Make sure everything is connected and turned on!


2. Put the photo on the glass of the scanner - face down


3. In Picasa, click 'Import'


4. Click the arrow for the drop down list of devices. You should see your scanner listed ... select it


5. Now you will see a screen that depends on your scanner. There should be an option to 'Preview'. Click that.


6. You should now see your picture, there may be some settings you want to change here, but if it looks OK then


7. Click the button to Scan


8. When it's done scanning, you're back at the standard Picasa Import screen. Click Import all.


9. 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