Digitizing printed photos are a popular way to preserve them.  We understand why we scan photos because ink fades, water damage is a real threat, paper rips, and sometimes things just get lost.  So we digitize our old paper photos; but, scanned photos have no information attached to them.  Digital photos taken with a phone or digital camera, automatically have tags added to let you easily find them later and to let you use the many great photo organizing software programs that are on the market today.  When scanning photos, the scanner digitizes the image of your printed photo but it does not capture other information.  So how can you find photos after you scan them?

The answer is, photo scanning software, ScanSpeeder's caption feature.  The caption feature lets you capture, during the scanning process, the context of those old paper photos and tag them them with information, while batch scanning multiple photos' images, so you can easily find them later.   It gives you the modern sense of the word "digital photo" -  photo image and tagging information to it. 

So, how do we do this?  First of all, you need to have scanned your photos with ScanSpeeder (need a copy? click here) and have added captions.  Captions must be added because otherwise the scanned photo has no information attached to it (see this article to learn how to add a caption)

The article below is about how to search for scanned photos after you have tagged them using the caption feature.  

Let's get started... 

How to Find Scanned Photos 

Searching for scanned photos always makes me think of a silly photo I have from 1978 that is of a blurry rhinoceros from the zoo;  I like seeking this photo because it reminds me of when a seagull at the zoo dropped his business directly on my dad's head.  I should add that he had very bushy and long hair in the 70's.  Needless to say, I love this photo.  So when scanning it I added the caption, "1978 zoo trip - dad versus seagull".  If I need a good laugh it's easy to find!   The best part of this caption is that its embedded in the photo and can be viewed and searched in Window's File Explorer.  The caption added in ScanSpeeder is saved alongside the photo as the "title" in File Explorer.  An easy way to then search for the photo if you are seeking it.  Let's take a look... 

So, how did I find the photo I was searching for by title?   

Step 1:

First, open File Explorer.  The easiest way to do this, with the least amount of work, is to open it directly from ScanSpeeder.

Click the “Open Folder” button in ScanSpeeder after you have saved your photos in Step 3 - Save Files.  This will open Windows File Explorer for you directly in the folder that you saved your photos into.  

Another way to do this is to open File Explorer from the bottom tray of your screen, like I have done below in a screen shot from Windows 10.   Please note  that you will need to manually open the folder where you store your photos if you open File Explorer this way.  I therefore recommend opening it after you scan your photos directly from  Scanpeeder.  

Step 2: 

In the upper far right of your screen in Windows File Explorer there is search field.

In the search field type in "1978" (quotation marks are not necessary).  Then click the Return key on your keyboard.  

(Please note: if you are using Windows 7: you will need to add the prefix "title:" to the search term (quotation marks are not necessary).  In this case it would look like this "title: 1978")

To Recap: 

Digital photos we take with our digital cameras and phones automatically tag information to them to let us easily find them later.  Our old paper photos do not have this kind of data so when we scan them into our PC to preserve them digitally, we need to add tags.  ScanSpeeder's photo scanning software lets you do both of these functions at the same time: batch scan multiple photos and tag them so you can easily find them after scanning.