Now days a decent scanner is relatively cheap, so scanning items yourself is a good way to save and share photos and letters is to scan them and make digital copies. These copies let you do whatever you want with them, without worrying about the original getting lost or damaged.
If you don't have access to a scanner but have a smart phone, there are a number of apps that can work to turn your phone into a makeshift scanner. While theses images wont give you the same quality as a scanner, they work great for sharing them with others. It's also easy and you do not need to buy anything extra.
The Library of Congress made a easy to follow video that covers the basics of how to use a scanner here
Digital files degrade over time and with moving around from disk to disk, making them blurry or corrupt. However some files are better at stating usable for long periods of time. When you're scanning you should keep this in mind.
Scanning specs:
Here's a quick guide to the settings you should manually set your scanner to to get the best quality archival images. If you are given an addition option on your scanner to pick the "quality" of the file, always go with the highest setting.
Type of Material | Color Mode* | DPI (PPI) ** |
---|---|---|
Color Photo | 48bit RGB | 400 |
Black & White Photo | 16bit greyscale | 400 |
Color Slides | 48bit RGB | 800 to 1200 |
Black & White Slides | 16bit greyscale | 800 to 1200 |
Written letter | 8bit greyscale or 24 bit RGB | 300 |
*Color mode is basically the quality of colors the scanner puts out, the higher the bit number, the more shades of colors.
**DPI stands for Dots Per Inch, PPI Pixels Per Inch. The higher the number the higher the resolution. The specs provided above leave you with a good enough quality image that is even acceptable to publishers!