NOTE: When scanning photographs for submission to the Santa Clarita Valley History Archives (SCVHistory.com), please use the highest possible dpi (dots per inch) setting that your scanner will allow for each image — which will vary depending on the size of the original photograph.

A minimum dpi of 2400 is OK, but higher is better (regardless of what this video says. You're submitting images for preservation for all time; you want to make them archive-quality.) Most images that have been added to the archive in recent years are 9600 or 19200 dpi. Also, as long as you use high dpi setting, the "print size" setting does not matter.

The video discusses tiffs (.tif or .tiff) and jpegs (.jpg or .jpeg), and it's correct: tiffs are best for archiving. Ideally you would submit the highest quality tiff you can make, and we'll archive it offline and convert it to a jpeg for display. (The images that are displayed on SCVHistory.com are jpegs.) In most cases, though, if you wish simply to submit a super-high-quality jpeg, that's OK, too.

Once you've scanned your photo(s), please e-mail us to determine the best way to submit them to the archive.