Old Digital Camera
 

Sorry, this is longer than I thought it would be! :blink:
My hubby bought his first digital camera in 1999 right before our son was born. It was the height of technology... it stored pictures on small floppy discs. The thing was huge. :closedeyes:
Well, fast forward to 2018 and the height of technology from 1999 is long gone! Thankfully, I moved the photos from the old floppies to my EHD before we got rid of a computer that could read floppies.
The problem is, it created dinosaur photos. These photos are like thumbnail size - 480x640 dpi and 80kb (yes, that's right... KILOBYTES!). :mad:
One of my short term goals is to get my photos scrapped by year. I'm working in 2000 now (I'll go back & scrap 1999 and before at another time).
The problem is the size of these photos. I'm using a template with 3" squares and seriously have to enlarge the photo by several times its original size. On my screen, they don't look awful. They aren't the best by any means, but for the most part, I think they're okay. I'm worried about when I print them, though.
Has anyone had experience printing these old digital photos??
I don't want to waste my time, but these memories are important, and there are no other copies of these photos.
Thanks for reading all this!! :wub:

Is testing an option? Try to scrap and print just a few pages and see if you like the quality.

I would be interested to know the answer to this as well and was thinking maybe do a test print of one page just to see. When my first was born, I was very involved in an online parenting community and whenever I shared photos they had to be reduced in size. At that time I wasn't doing digital scrapbooking and I had no clue about saving the originals, soooooooo....I just made everything tiny to fit their parameters. Now I am crushed cause I didn't save originals, so I have oodles of these tiny images. It's actually kinda heartbreaking because I didn't really do regular film photos with him, everything was digital.

My sister usually takes all of her photos on her phone at the lowest setting possible so her selfies turn out teeny-tiny like that. I have some actions that I use in PS to resize them, and I have printed a few photos to hang in my house. They're at 4x6, and I haven't noticed anything 'wrong' with them. A few are grainy-looking but they looked that way in PS when I was playing with them.

I think you should be fine if you can finesse them a little in your program and don't make them much larger than 4x6.

That's a good idea, Sarah. I'll have to try that before I create a bunch of pages!

Oh, Erin!! :( I would be crushed, too! That's kind of how I feel about Josh's baby pictures (that's why I'm not starting with 1999 photos). I'll let you know what they look like after a test print.

LeeAndra, is the action something that you created, or did you purchase it? I may have to give that a try.

What about making your layout a smaller size to start with? Then you don't have to increase your photos so much and they shouldn't become too pixelated/blurry?

I scrap 3600x3600 pixels (12inchesx12inches) with 300 resolutions but I think it would still print well if I scrapped 2400x2400 (8x8). You might want to try it out.

I hadn't thought about that, Lea. I normally create & print 12x12, but if I need to, I could do 8x8 books for those years. I'm going to send a 12x12 test page to Costco today to see how it comes out first.

I cross my fingers for good quality! Good luck!

You can view the page at 25% and see how they look. If they're not pixelated, I guess it'll be safe to print them :)

They are an action set a friend created and sent me a very, very, very long time ago. PM me if you'd like me to send them to you.

Thanks, Sarah!

That's good to know. Thanks, Anelia!

If you upload these photos to Shutterfly and insert them into a photo-book, Shutterfly will let you know if the photos resolution is poor. There will be a rectangle with an exclamation point next to the photo.

That's a fantastic idea, Monika! Thank you!

Thank you, LeeAndra! I sent you a PM :wub:

Hey, I got my first digital camera back in 2000 when I was pregnant with my first. Her photos are SUPER TINY as well. I don't print them because they are fuzzy and blurry. However I have scrapped with them.

These photos were super small! These are the biggest that I was able to get them without being too blurry. The layout printed nicely and if you notice any blurry, they just look like they are out of focus.

https://www.sweetshoppecommunity.com...12_smaller.jpg

I do have a few others that the photos are tinier and printed. They look nicely. I don't think I used SSD products for me to show them here. You just have to think "tiny" and "small" photos if you use them on a layout.

As far as printing on their own. I'd test print one or two of them to see how they printed before printing the entire batch.

I'm so thankful technology has improved and our photos have gotten so much better!

Wendy, I'm glad I'm not the only one!! It's a lesson in adopting new technology, I guess :P
Your page looks great! I finished a LO and sent it to Costco to see what it will look like. The photos were about 3" so hopefully they'll print okay.
If it's okay, I will definitely stay with smaller photo spots for these photos!!