Paint Shop Pro
(Click here to download the shareware version)

Paint Shop Pro, by JASC, Inc., is a Photo Retouching and Paint program. Using PSP, you can scan in photos from a digital camera, or scanner, and edit them to the desired appearance.

Once you selected the device (camera or scanner), from the File menu, select Acquire. This will activate your devices specific software which will scan or import the image into PSP.

Here is a typical scan window from Hewlett Packard. Other software will vary depending the manufacturer, but the functionality is basically the same in all software.

There are many numerous adjustments available in the scanner software, but in most cases the defaults are acceptable and until you learn more about your specific scanner software, use the default settings. In this case, we will click Final to accept the settings and scan the image into PSP.

Cropping the Image

If the image is to be used for printing, resizing may not be necessary and the best format is usually TIF. TIFs store the maximum amount of color and resolution. However, when using photos on the Internet, they must be in GIF or JPG format, and in the smallest format possible. For our database, images should be resized to 300 pixels wide maintaining aspect ratio as described below.

If your photograph is too dark, gamma correction may be necessary.