Eric Bornstein Loc: Toronto Canada

Need help, please. I am scanning family photographs from my HP printer/scanner to my Mac. I have directed that the digital images are saved in 'Documents'. I want transfer the images into 'Photos' and then edit them. The digital images will not transfer. Is this because they are PDF files? How do I scan the images but not in PDF format?
Thank you in advance .

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

You want them as JPEG or TIFF, not PDF. See if there is an 'image' option rather than 'document'.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Grabbing one HP model at random, the term they use is "scan file format." Check the manual for how to select the file type (per Chg_Canon's comment) prior to scan. The model I viewed online offers JPEG, TIFF, PDF, BMP, PNG.

dave.speeking Loc: Brooklyn OH

I tend to use the "Save As" when scanning anything.
A little screen pops up asking what format I want.

PixelBoy Loc: Brooklyn, NY

Let me add this: As said, someplace in the scanning app will be a choice of format. Pick TIFF but not JPG. Why you ask? Because they are lossy which means every time you save it you lose some image quality. Save it a few times and you can ruin the image you put work into. A TIFF can be worked and saved many, many times and stay good.

If you have no choice, scan at highest quality JPG and resave 1st thing as a TIFF and trash that JPG. As a precaution, hang onto the original. Every time you work that image, do it to the TIFF and resave to a new name, convert to JPG so you can send it out, say as Email. If you're sending it to a lab for a pro-print, they will be able to work with the TIFF or JPG. The Email [defacto] standard is the JPG.

I can explain why, but not now. Just know that you shouldn't put time and effort into an image and save it as a JPG. At some point, the joy will be gone and you will walk off into the sunset muttering 'WTF happened'. People around you will be concerned.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Pick a non destructive editor like Lightroom and this idea of repeated Saves is taken completely off the table as the original file is never at risk of being overwritten.

PixelBoy Loc: Brooklyn, NY

Each time you fix the image and save, the last one is [even the original] is kept as if being done to a layer onto the initial image? You still will end up with a final you can send out as a JPG. At some point [sooner than later] you will see the loss in the JPG because that IS the nature of the beast. It is a lossy format. Better not to work with JPGs if you can avoid it. Also, once it's outside of Lightroom, all bets are off.

I will qualify what I say by admitting that I never use Lightroom for image editing. I'm a Photoshop [with plug-ins] kind of child, but the JPG rule doesn't change. Don't use them for editing and re-editing with saves. Makes my teeth itch. However, if that floats your boat, have at it.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

You appear to only know wrong information, old wife's tales and urban legends. There's nothing wrong with that except when you try to pass it off as helpful knowledge to others.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

There is nothing wrong with the JPG format. Feel free to use it.

True, the jpg uses a lossy compression, but the loss for most practical purposes is negligible. Note that the compression of a jpg can be set by many software packages at the time the jpg is generated. A high compression generates a small file, but significant loss. A low compression will generate a large file, but little loss, and the compression artifacts will not be visible. Some software puts this in terms of jpg quality: high compression -> low quality and low compression -> high quality.

You can open and close a jpg without any degradation at all. Rewriting the jpg will re-compress it and cause more artifacts, but just copying the jpg will not. To cause noticeable degradation of a jpg will require rewriting it more than 10-100 times, depending on the compression you are using.

A low compression (high quality) jpg is still significantly smaller than a tif file. I tried it on a couple of images and the difference was around a factor of 5. This is not a problem for some things since storage space is cheap, but may impact the ability to email your image or may take extra time to load it into some software.

one_eyed_pete Loc: Colonie NY

Yes you should be saving the scanned images as an image file rather than a PDF for the image editor software to easily open the file. I don't believe anyone has addressed the question of why the digital images will not transfer. Any files on your hard drive can be relocated/transferred between folders. "Documents" and "Photos" are just folders. How are you trying to make the transfer? When I scan anything I normally create a "Scans" folder on my desktop to save the scan files then move the scan files to where I want to store them after. To move them you can even use the "drag and drop" technique.

nadelewitz Loc: Ithaca NY

You are dealing with two separate issues and sound very confused. Can you find someone to sit with you and help you?

1. Where you directly save scanned files to makes no difference. You should be able to move the files to any other folder. And if you always want the files in "Photos", tell the scanner program to put them there, not in "Documents". If you can't move files around, there is something else going on.

2. Why are you scanning photos as PDFs? PDFs are not editable photo files. JPEGS, TIFFS are.

BobHartung Loc: Bettendorf, IA

You can try extracting the image from the pdf. I find that there is a tiff file in nearly every pdf I have opened. You'll have to learn your pdf editor.

Fredrick Loc: Former NYC, now San Francisco Bay Area

Hi. I have an HP printer/scanner that I use to scan old photographs. I am using Windows 10, so this info. may not apply to you. I’m also assuming you have an actual paper photograph that you’re trying to scan. Actually, if you had a pdf print copy of a photograph that you could put on the flatbed scanner, that would work too. Anyway, when I start the scan process, the first option in my drop down is “Photo” to file, which gives me a jpg image. If I choose Document to file, I get a pdf. You should have a photo to file option.

Vince68 Loc: Wappingers Falls, NY

Not sure which model HP printer/scanner you have, or if this will help you. Here are 3 screen shots of the scan choices when scanning on an older model HP Printer/Scanner that I still have and use to scan documents.

Depending on the model you have, your choices may be a little different, but I would think they would still be somewhat similar to what is on my model here.

Hope this is what you were looking for and helps.

HP Scan #1
Attached file:
(Download)

HP Scan #2
Attached file:
(Download)

HP Scan #3
Attached file:
(Download)

tschuler

It's because you have an Apple. My Windows PC accepts PDF's in the photos folder with no problems.