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How to Transfer From Paper to Digital

Long before digital cameras ruled the world of amateur photography, photographers amateur and professional alike shot on rolls of film. Film photographers often had their film processed at department stores, specialty stores and pharmacies that printed the images as 4" x 6" prints. Serious film photographers likely have album after album filled with photos from family vacations or other special events. Using a flatbed scanner you can take those paper prints and turn them into digital files, for emailing or sharing online.

Things You'll Need

Paper photos
Flatbed scanner
Home computer

Instructions

- 1
  Organize your photo albums containing the paper prints you want to scan. If they are in a photo album that had a self-adhesive page, use care when taking photos out of the album. If they have been there for a while, they might be difficult to remove. Use a small knife or straight edge to carefully pry up one of the corners of the photo, then slowly peel it off the album page.
- 2
  Attach a flatbed scanner to your home computer using a USB cable. Turn the power on for your home computer and the flatbed scanner.
- 3
  Install the included software for the scanner onto your laptop computer. Once installed, open the scanning software. If you have a photo browser software, open that as well to import you scanned pictures.
- 4
  Create folders in your computer to match the names of the albums your pictures have been stored in. If you didn’t use a filing system or give names to your albums, you can use a shot date – it will likely appear on the back of your pictures – or simply “Album One” and so on to name the pictures.
- 5
  Place the photo face down on the scanner, close the lid, and start the scan.
- 6
  Save the picture to the appropriate folder, and repeat the process for each picture until they are all scanned. Once they are done you, have successfully taken your paper prints and converted them to digital files.

Photography