Trying to make albums

[ancient11]

I am 82 years old and not very software intuitive. I am trying to copy our old family pictures and make multiple copies so that I can make an album for each child. I can't figure out how to make it scan from the software on the computer, then edit the picture, then choose the paper and orientation.

When I was messing with photograph's before (but that was when Windows 98 was popular) I had an HP and all that was very easily done with the software. It was very simple and easy to use, yet it was very powerful. The software you have with this just seems to be something that they haphazardly picked up and through in the box as a mere afterthought. I hope that I am not being too critical but that's just the way it seems to me.

I really love the idea and the concept of this machine but without adequate software it's useless. I hope that someone can show me something that I have missed due to my being uneducated in software.
Thank you very much
ancient

[cicopo · Accepted solution]

I don't know anything about the equipment you have but I'll assume you are trying to scan old photos & not negatives or slides. If so the first thing needed is to scan them at the highest resolution the scanner & associated software allows. You'll want the scans to have a .jpg extension & all of the files to end up in one folder on your computer. Hopefully you're working on a Windows PC with a decent monitor & have your own photo quality printer. IF SO you'll need to run off a print with good colour & brightnes & then compare it's brightness to what you see on your monitor. It's very likely the monitor brightness will need to be turned way down to reflect how the photo printed. This is normal because most people like a bright monitor but you'll need to get the monitor brightness as close to how bright the prints are or things won't go well. You can't edit accurately until that's done.

For editing & printing download Picasa  {the link doesn't seem to work but it should if you just type that address in along with www.} (.picasa.google.com) and spend a bit of time playing with the first & second page of editing tools. It's free & very useful plus it can work as the printer manager. Again you'll have to do a bit of reading & learn the menu system for the printer operation but it's pretty straight forward plus Picasa has some help pages on line for you to consult as needed.

Re editing. Make a copy of the full set of scans & edit the copies, not the originals. This can be done by Picasa easily. You select all the files you want to work with, use the EXPORT command from the bottom menues & create another album (which you can name as Scan Copies or whatever you like) & before you do this you use the menues in the export window that opened to set

IMAGE SIZE choose original

IMAGE QUALITY choose either Automatic or Maximum. (both produce great results).

[ancient11]

Mr.cicopo
I wish to thank you very much for trying to help me and you most certainly did. I was trying to get out of using third-party software so that I could use the 5 x 7 sheets of photo paper – plus get out of the import and export portions. I have a lot of photographs and it's going to be a lot of work.

A lazy person deserves nothing and so I have just put my mind to it and will go ahead. At my age a learning curve can be quite an obstacle but it doesn't mean that it cannot be overcome.

Again, I wish to thank you very much for your time and help.
Ancient

[cicopo]

If you're willing to download & try Picasa I think you'll find it very useful once you play around in it. Although I have the full blown current version of Photoshop Picasa is still my usual editing & printing package. It's also my libary organizer.