Convert your old photos to digital pictures
and put them in a photo album!

Just great for special birthday gifts and family history books!




Scanning old photos is a great way to preserve memories and reduce clutter. When converting old prints into digital pictures and print your own photo book, you get to see them more frequently. You also have more opportunities to share them with friends and family. Intrigued? Let?s start with the basics of photo scanning.

Choosing a scanner

To convert your photos, the first thing you'll need is a scanner. Scanners come in lots of different shapes and sizes, but they all work in more or less the same way?like a copy machine. But unlike a copier that scans your document and immediately prints a duplicate, scanners take a picture of your document and then send that information to your computer, where it can be saved as a file. For scanned photos, that?s usually the same JPEG format used by your digital camera. PhotoAlbumMaker software supports JPG, TIF and PNG file formats. BMP (Bitmap) format pictures CANNOT be used.

So what kind of scanner should you get? Here?s a rundown of the most common scanners you?ll see in stores:

  • Flatbed scanner. This is the most common kind of scanner. It features a glass surface on which you place the item you want to scan. A scanning head?which works kind of like a tiny digital camera?moves across the glass and captures an image of the document, photo, or other item you're scanning. This is the best choice for scanning most photos.
  • Film scanner. Film scanners are too small to accept traditional photo prints. Instead, they?re designed to accommodate slides and negatives. Some flatbed scanners come with adapters for slides and negatives, but dedicated film scanners capture much higher quality images of these kinds of photos. If you have a large collection of slides and negatives, it might be worth investing in a film scanner.
  • Wand scanner. A wand (or handheld) scanner is similar to the scanning head from a flatbed scanner, mounted in a device you hold in your hand. Place the document or photo on a tabletop and then manually move the wand down the length of the item, as if you were sweeping dust off the table. These scanners are most common for folks who travel a lot and frequently need to scan text documents. They?re not very useful for photos, because their resolution and image quality is usually too low for good results.

Using your scanner

So, here you are?a stack of photos on your desk, ready to be scanned. A scanner sitting nearby. Now what? Actually, that depends on your scanner. Every scanner has its own software with its own unique controls and settings. Click here to watch the video on "How to scan"

To scan a photo for PhotoAlbumMaker, scan it at 250-300 dots per inch (DPI), so you can make high-quality prints later. The golden rule is that if you put quality pictures in, you will get quality pictures back, in your products. Neither the PhotoAlbumMaker software or print processes will add any more detail to your pictures than is already there, so you should note this when using pictures that are not good quality.

You might be able to adjust the document type. Scanners works best if they are set to a specific document type. You can often choose from among options such as Photograph, Negative, Illustration, and Newspaper, which you can use to scan different kinds of documents, papers, and film.

Making your own photo book

The PhotoAlbumMaker Editor is free software that you use to create your own photobook product. To get started.....

  1. Create a new folder on your local drive and put the photos you have scanned along with other digital pictures you want for the new project in it. The reason for this is that PhotoAlbumMaker does not make copies of your pictures, it simply creates a link to them in their original location. As this is the case, we recommend that you organise your pictures prior to beginning any projects, so that your pictures will not move at any stage during the project. If your pictures do move (either by you moving them or the pen drive or other device being unplugged) they will not be picked up by the software and you will receive an error message when opening your project.
  2. Download PhotoAlbumMaker software from the download page, install and open the software.
  3. Select the photobook product you wish to create from photo books to posters and calendars
  4. Create your photobook product by dragging the digital photos you have scanned into one of the templates and then applying any of the beautiful visual effects. Coloured or transparent backgrounds, text, masks and borders are only a mouse click away and the results are simply stunning.

It's Easy. And we have user guide and video tutorial for you online, if you have further questions, simply post it at our help desk or email us at: service[at]photoalbummaker.com.au, our service team will respond your questions within 1 business day.