Your family heritage photos. That college degree. Your son's blue ribbon. Photos from every special occasion imaginable. You've been saving these for years and now you have dozens, hundreds, thousands of pieces of memorabilia! How will you organize them? How will you share them?

A scanner may be your answer.

You don't have to research the topic yourself. We broke it down for you in simple terms. This article will offer you the basics of choosing a scanner, saving and organizing your scanned items, making some easy edits, and printing your digital images

Scanners Defined

Scanners do what used to be done in a darkroom: cropping, enlarging, reducing, sharpening and removing specks. They allow you to organize images either on the hard drive or on a CD, and most of all, they offer you the opportunity to deliver your precious keepsakes into the digital age in an organized fashion!

A recent website poll posted 829 responses. Of those, 82.9% or 695 of the respondents said they use digital camera photos on some or all of their scrapbook pages. What does this mean for scanners?

In many ways, a scanner is similar to a digital camera —but instead of capturing an entire scene in a fraction of a second, a scanner methodologically "eyes" or moves across the scanning bed, seeing what you have laid out. The more accurately the eye moves, the better resolution, or quality, your photo will have in image format. With this said, what kind of scanner should you get?

The Basics of Choosing Your Scanner!

If you think you're having a hard time keeping up with technology, well, so is... technology. New scanner models are being created all the time. Flatbed models have always been easiest to use: You lift the lid, lay the page on the glass, and scan —and now the prices are evaporating, making them affordable for the home user.

Prices run from $99 for a solid home model to $299 for a high-end home office model, and everywhere in-between.

Choose a scanner with at least 30 or 36 bit. What does this mean? To put it into perspective, the human eye sees approximately 16.7 million colors, or translated to tech terminology, about 24 bits. By increasing the amount of colors that the scanner "eye" sees, the image quality will also increase. If the scanner can see more colors, it can also improve certain aspects of your photo, for instance, darker areas or areas with many, many colors.

Saving and Organizing Your Mementos!

Like digital photos, scanned photos also take up a lot of space on your computer's hard drive. As you scan your item, you'll be asked at what "dpi" you want to save. DPI? It's a tech term meaning dots-per-inch. To make it easier to understand, the higher the dots-per-inch, the longer it takes to scan and the more space it takes on your computer's hard drive. Keep in mind that a high density or high dpi will not result in a clearer picture on your screen. Scan at the lowest dpi consistent with how you will use the photo —lower for storing and saving and higher for printing.

Photos can be stored and saved in your computer as PICT, TIFF or JPEG files. JPEG is preferable for photos being viewed in your computer because it reduces the storage space by as much as 90 percent. In addition, your other programs will recognize JPEG files, and most other computers accept JPEG. If you're thinking about emailing the images to your friends or family, you're safe choosing JPEG.

You'll notice that as you save files, your computer will automatically assign confusing names to them, usually a combination of numbers. Use your normal file maintenance to create folders/headings for your items, and then choose easy to recognize names for the specific image. For example, "carls1stbirthday.jpg" under a "Birthdays" folder will be easier then "000002305jpg".

Just like organizing physical mementos, think of all the possible headings before diving into saving all the images on your computer or CDs.

If you have many items to scan, for instance if you want to store all those items you've been saving for years, invest in a CD-ROM which allows you to place and save your photos on CD disks for storage, rather than on your hard drive. CD-ROMs, if your computer doesn't already have one, are an investment at around $350, but like scanners, new technology means prices shrink daily. Fifty years from now you'll still have these images, and you can view them easily on your computer rather then dig them out of the attic —an investment worth making.

Easy Editing!

One of the bonuses of scanning your photos is the opportunity to make up for photography mishaps. Most home computer packages come with a simple editing program. Check your computer manual or HELP button for yours. After you scan your item, you'll be guided through a simple editing program. Don't let all the graphics scare you —at first you'll only use a couple of them. After you view the preview of the image, you can easily crop away unnecessary background details, brighten the image or eliminate the red-eye in the photos. Like any new endeavor, the more you practice, the more comfortable and confident you will become. Soon, you can include picture rotation, straightening and resizing.

Printing These Images!

All printers, papers and inks are not created equal. Once you have scanned, edited and saved (often) your items, you'll probably want to print them out. Rather than sift through technological mumbo-jumbo, remember a few simple tips.