One the aspects of video biography work I've enjoyed over the years is the ability to give new life to vintage family photos. It's always fun to watch my clients' reactions as they see their old family snapshots, some of them originally not much larger than postage stamps, fill the television screen. Many folks don't realize that they can enlarge the size of their teeny-tiny photos from generations ago. But it can be done. All you need is a scanner with software that allows you to adjust the pixel size of your photos.

A scanner is a device that looks like a small copier. It's rectangular in shape, with a glass bed and a cover. If you're in the market for a scanner, please purchase one that's not going to destroy or damage your photos. This means you want a flat-bed scanner. With a flat-bed scanner you lay your photo flat on top of the glass bed, lower the cover, scan and then remove the picture - no fuss, no muss. And no rollers to bend or mutilate your precious snapshots.

So what's a pixel? The word is actually short for "picture element." Pixels are the dots that form the images on computer displays and television screens. They're sort of the electronic equivalent of the dots that make up the photos in your newspaper. (Try looking at a newspaper photo with a magnifying glass, and you'll see the individual dots.) The more dots per inch you have, the better the quality of the photo.

What's this got to do with picture size? The size of a standard definition video picture is 720 pixels wide and 480 pixels high. So it stands to reason that if you want a photo to fill the screen (without your having to expand the size of the still using your video software and possibly degrading picture quality) you'll need to scan your photo so that it's at least 720x480.

Your scanner's software should allow you to vary the number of dots per inch at which you scan a photo. The software should also display the size the picture will be, in pixels, after you scan it. A little experimentation will show you that increasing the dpi results in a larger photo. If the settings show that your still is smaller than 720x480, just increase the dpi until you reach a suitable photo size.

Two cautions: Photos that appear sharp at a small size may look softer once you enlarge them. You're not changing the focus of the photo as you enlarge it; it's just easier for your eyes to detect soft focus in a larger photo than a pint-sized one. Also, increasing the photo size results in a larger file size. Don't make your scanned pictures any larger than they need to be, or else you may need to make your video editing software and your computer work harder to squeeze your photos down to size to fit on your video screen.

- - Steve Pender

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When will Family Legacy Video schedule another video biography workshop? The immediate answer is: not yet. A combination of a busy video production schedule and some ongoing family commitments have forced me to put off the workshop for the time-being.

HOWEVER, another workshop will be scheduled as soon as possible. If I can set one up for sometime this fall, I will. If that doesn't happen, a workshop will definitely be added to the calendar for early in 2008 - February would be a good guess.

In the meantime, thanks for your patience AND for the workshop surveys you've submitted. Your input will certainly help me plan a video biography workshop that will help you hone your video bio skills.

- - Steve Pender

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