Used flatbed scanner to digitze 4 photos at a time. What's the easy way to get individual photos?

[pepperminty]

We used a flatbed scanner to scan photos four at time (in a 2x2 layout).
Now we're wondering: What is an easy way to get each TIFF/JPEG file "chopped" and cropped? In other words, I'd like each original TIFF/JPEG to turn into 4 individual photos.

Thank you.

[Moem]

Open the image in Pix, crop to one picture, save. Undo the cropping, crop to a different picture, and save that. And so on.

[smurphos]

Mint's Document Scanner GUI has a crop before save function, so you could just use that..

[axrusar]

A few ideas...
I do not know any "automatic" way to accomplish this, it would have to be a program with AI to separate each individual picture.
If you do not care about the resolution, for example if the pictures will be used for web purposes, you can use a screenshot utility like Flameshot, available in the Mint software repos. Open the pictures zoomed on the screen, and use Flameshot to mark the desired area and save the new file very easily.

Another option if you want to keep resolution and a consistent frame size, use Gimp with a fixed size selection and save each picture, but this will require a bit more skill and time of course. With some practice, you can use the keyboard shortcuts and do it faster.
I use Photoshop, i am not sure if gimp has this feature, but if you have access to Photoshop, and you are positioning the pictures in the same spots on the scanner, you can record the slicing actions and export everything in one single action... just in case you have a lot of pictures to scan.
Good luck

[AndyMH]

I would use gthumb to manually crop. gthumb doesn't do much else so very easy to use.

[mikeflan]

Using ImageMagick is an option:
https://legacy.imagemagick.org/Usage/crop/

[AZgl1800]

I just use the on board, ScreenShot utility and save direct from the screen, the parts of the image that I want.

So much faster than a lot of utilities.

If I need to change the Pixel count, I then load that image into GIMP.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Open the image in Pix, crop to one picture, save. Undo the cropping, crop to a different picture, and save that. And so on.

Instead of undoing the cropping, use Save As instead of Save. Save As saves the modified image as a new file and leaves the original intact.

[AZgl1800]

Open the image in Pix, crop to one picture, save. Undo the cropping, crop to a different picture, and save that. And so on.

Instead of undoing the cropping, use Save As instead of Save. Save As saves the modified image as a new file and leaves the original intact.

I do that also, Image.jpg after the crop become Image2.jpg so that they stay together when looking NEMO alphabetically.

in some cases if it has been scaled, Image-220pix.jpg like for Avatars, etc.

[Petermint]

If they are of value, the scan can save to .PNG. The scan program and Gimp can chop into four. If you use Gimp, you can make other changes including rotate to the right orientation and increase the contrast for washed out prints. You can export the full resolution image as a save-for-the-future .PNG plus resize down and export as a .JunkPEG for display on your phone.

[bin]

We used a flatbed scanner to scan photos four at time (in a 2x2 layout).
Now we're wondering: What is an easy way to get each TIFF/JPEG file "chopped" and cropped? In other words, I'd like each original TIFF/JPEG to turn into 4 individual photos.

Thank you.

Open the scanned image in GIMP
Drag guides in from the horizontal and vertical rulers - in your case one of each.
You can reposition these by going to the Move tool in Toolbox (4 way arrow) then select click the 'Pick a layer or Guide' button from the box below
When you are happy with the position of the guides go to Image>Transform>Guillotine
You'll then get the required number of bits as individual files. Export/save each file as required.

[RollyShed]

I would use gThumb to manually crop. gThumb doesn't do much else so very easy to use.

I agree and that's what I use for that type of job or usually simply cropping a picture. So easy, so quick.
It can also improve focus and simple colour editing.

[pepperminty]

thanks to all for the replies.
I know i can manually crop, but isn't there a way to use technology (software) to detect the photographs (maybe by seeing that pictuers have all a variety of color which stops at the edge of white (the background of the flatbed scanner) and have it (software) autochop?
That's what's behind my question.

[freshminted]

Note that I haven't actually used any of these. It just sounded like an interesting problem...

See https://turbofuture.com/graphic-design- ... g-Software for lots of suggestions, mainly Windows & Mac, but a few Linux, especially http://www.fmwconcepts.com/imagemagick/ ... /index.php (scroll down the page a bit for the script) and https://francoismalan.com/2013/01/how-t ... ed-photos/.

Be prepared for a bit of work "under the hood" to actually use them.

[pepperminty]

thanks, freshminted. plan on looking at that in a few days.

[ralplpcr]

thanks to all for the replies.
I know i can manually crop, but isn't there a way to use technology (software) to detect the photographs (maybe by seeing that pictuers have all a variety of color which stops at the edge of white (the background of the flatbed scanner) and have it (software) autochop?
That's what's behind my question.

As indicated by axrusar, it would require some pretty sophisticated AI to automatically detect, separate, & crop your images. While you may not think about it, there are actually a LOT of variables to consider:

• 1. The positioning of your images on the page
• 2. The size of the scanned page (8.5x11, 8.5x14, A4, etc)
• 3. The orientation of the images (landscape vs portrait)
• 4. The size of each of the images (3x5", 4x6", 5x7", etc)
• 5. The rotation of the images
• 6. etc.

If any of these are not "as expected", then any detection would be off....and you would end up with a mess of incorrectly sized & positioned images.

If we assume:

• 1. The page is consistently sized for all scans
• 2. The photos were all the same size, and were positioned exactly in each corner of the page
• 3. The orientation of each photo is all the same
• 4. There exists whitespace of similar/detectable size between each photo

...then the simplest technique would be

• 1. Divide the page into 4 quadrants - halfway vertically, and halfway horizontally
• 2. Save each quadrant as it's own uniquely-named .PNG or .JPG
• 3. Open each .PNG or .JPG and apply an auto-crop function (imagemagick)
• 4. Re-save the .PNG or .JPG
• 5. Repeat for the next full page scan

That wouldn't compensate for any photos that aren't perfectly rotated & aligned, but it could do the trick if you're not after perfection. It would, however, still require manual coding of a bash or other script to perform this task.

So it's possible.... but it might be faster/easier to just re-scan them as individual images if you're not proficient in coding.
By all means feel free to explore freshminted's suggestions, but as indicated, be prepared for a good bit of "under the hood" preparation before you'd be able to even attempt using them.

[Moem]

That's what's behind my question.

It might have been more convenient if it was front and center.

[Flemur]

We used a flatbed scanner to scan photos four at time (in a 2x2 layout).

Good old irfan-view can do it automagically:

Edit: Here are the output images:

iview-mult-image2.jpg (13.46 KiB) Viewed 1385 times

[bin]

That's what's behind my question.

It might have been more convenient if it was front and center.

Depends on your scanner. For example I use a Canon 8800F - 20 years old so hardly hi-tech.
I use Vuescan - which is a commercial product - though the Canon free original Windows version from which it is ported works fine with Windows 8.1 in a VM.

There are a couple of settings which allow it to sequntilly scan a number of pictures on the scan bed by autocropping the first preview. All you have to do is click save>next>save>next etc..... job done.

[Moem]

That's what's behind my question.

It might have been more convenient if it was front and center.

Depends on your scanner. (...)

I assume you meant to reply to the OP?