Scanning tools and adding text to photos

#NFHM2022 Week 3 - Two tools

Recently I have been re-scanning some old family photos and paying greater attention to the correction details available within the scanner's software. So this post is about two tools I find very useful for family history.

1. The Scanner

My Canon LIDE300 flatbed scanner provides a range of tools for making colour correction to those old faded photos from the seventies and eighties. It is also simple enough for excellent correction to be made to old sepia and black and white photos.

I'm sure most scanners' software would have these functions, it is just a matter of taking time to find them. The temptation to just choose Photo for a simple scan does not reveal all the tools but simply saves the scanned photos to a designated folder.

Using the scanners' software gives me many of the correction tools I would otherwise need to use in a program such as Photoshop.

From the opening screen one selects ScanGear to reveal all the possibilities. 

Scanner menu

Place more than one photo on the platen and preview.

Choose individual settings for each photo before final scan.

In the screenshot of the Preview screen above the photo on the left is from the 1970s with fading correction set to medium and the one on the right from the mid 1980s with fading correction set to low.

Further adjustments can be made to each photo prior to the final scan using the saturation/colour correction, brightness/contrast, black/white points or tone curve tools.

2. Paint by Microsoft

This small utility program comes pre-installed with Windows. When I have a photo or newspaper clipping that I want to add text to, this is a simple method.

 

Find Paint by searching in the bottom bar on Windows. 

1. File >Open to navigate to your image, or copy and paste an image in.
2. Use the dot displayed at the centre bottom of your photo to pull down to extend the canvas
3. Select the text tool and draw a text box in the white space now available
4. Type in the box
5. Save file as jpg or png

Paint is also a simple free way to add arrows and other shapes to screen clippings as in the Scanner images at the beginning of this post.

Here is a short demonstration of how to add text using Paint, to any image file

Saving articles from current news

Today I've read an article about the restoration of the Smyth chapel in West Terrace cemetery, Adelaide. This chapel was established as a memorial to John Smyth, the brother of one of my great grandfathers.
While it remains available online it can be read at the home of The Southern Cross newspaper under this title Major restoration of historic West Terrace funeral chapel.

Online articles often disappear quickly or can only be found in subscription archives after their expiry date. To keep this article for my family history records, I prefer to have it stripped of all advertising.

On this website there is the handy option of Print article which strips the advertising but retains the reference details of the date and page of publication. My preference is to Print to PDF then save to an appropriate folder on my computer and to my Smyth family notebook in Evernote.

Print Options

In the Print Options the choices depend on the programs installed on the computer. From the Destination drop down menu in the Print dialog choose More to reveal all the options available

Print options

Web clippers

If you have the Evernote clipper installed in your browser, one option provided is to Save the simplified article to the notebook of your choice. This also eliminates all the advertising.

Using the Evernote web clipper - simplified article

Another option from the Evernote web clipper is to take a screenshot. This provides the user with annotation tools. This is useful if saving articles from local papers that are published via issuu.com where printing and saving is usually disabled.

Using the Evernote Screen clipper - use the annotation tools to add source details

Similar options are available through Awesome Screenshot and OneNote. These add ons are available for most browsers and both Windows and Mac operating systems.

This post first appeared on https://carmelgalvin.info