Scanning old photos is important to preserve memories from physical deterioration, create backups against disasters, and make them easily shareable with family and friends. Digitising allows for the enhancement of image quality, easier storage, and the creation of a digital archive that is protected from damage like fading, fire, or flood.
Preservation and protection
- Prevent physical damage: Old photos naturally fade, yellow, and degrade over time, especially early colour photos. Scanning captures the image as it is now, preserving it before further deterioration occurs.
- Protect from disasters: A physical album is vulnerable to damage from events like fire, floods, or theft. A digital backup on a computer, hard drive, or cloud service ensures your photos are safe from a single point of loss.
- Create unlimited copies: Unlike the original print, digital copies can be made without any loss of quality. This ensures you have multiple backups and can share them without worrying about damaging the original.
Accessibility and sharing
- Easy sharing: Digital photos can be easily shared with family and friends via email, messaging apps, or cloud-based services. This allows loved ones to have their own copies of cherished memories.
- On-demand access: You can access your digitised photos from anywhere with an internet connection on different devices, without needing to physically handle the prints.
- Digital display: Scanned photos can be displayed on smart home devices like Google Nest Hubs or used in digital picture frames.
Enhancement and organisation
- Improve image quality: Scanning allows you to use photo-editing software to improve the condition of the original image, which can include colour correction for fading.
- Simplify organisation: Digitising allows for easy organisation in digital folders and albums, making them simpler to manage than stacks of physical photos.