I need to take some pictures of some vintage black and white 8 x 10 photos

I'm terrible at taking photos anyway - but what is the best color to put the B & W photos on to get the best result? Both of my scanners are too old to hook up to my MacBook.

Thanks

 

Thank you Marie. I'm currently trying out the scanner on my printer, and because these are 8 x 11, it might work for these.

Does choosing a color that has the same value as the middle range hold for photos of objects as well?

 

If you can't scan try using a black velvet background, it absorbs any light and does not reflect.
Then download Photoscape.org for free.
You can then change the appearance by about 2000 combinations.

This is a piece of ivory against black velvet then altered in Photoscape.

You can Antique them , Cartoon them, just about anything.

 

Wow - that's cool Davey.

 

These are actual photographs - original vintage ones I want to list.
I have two excellent old scanners but they are not compatible with my new Macbook Air. Or my stupid Mac is not compatible with them.
Maybe I'll try and figure it out - I can't afford a new $800 scanner.

 

One of my Epson printer/scanners gave up the ghost so I installed a 12 month old Canon to my 12 month old Dell PC and it wasn't able to work, I had to go to the Canon website and download all the new drivers, absolute PITA.

 

I got my EpsonPerfection V750 Pro flatbed scanner working with a usb hub I bought. I really like my older Canon scanner better - it's a much better scanner, but I don't have time to fool with it now.

Here are a few of the 50 odd photos I'm scanning. All of them measure 8" by 10". Most of them were taken by John Drennan, many at Roosevelt Field on Long Island during the 1940s and 50s.

Milo Burcham with his Boeing 100 at Roosevelt Field. He was a stunt pilot, airshow pilot, and the head test pilot for Lockheed. He died in his early forties test flying a new plane for Lockheed:


The Hofstra College football team, The Flying Dutchmen, posing with a Curtis Fledgling at Roosevelt Field, 1930s, 40s:



The Convertawings Quadromotor Motor A, in 1956 at Zahn Airport. Designer, builder, and tester David H. Kaplan. This was the first patented Quadro Helecopter. It worked fine but the project was eventually dropped from lack of interest:




1955 photo of a man in the cockpit of a Mooney Mite airplane at the Zahns Airport. I haven't found out who he is yet:



Cool photo of a French seaplane about to take off, and the yacht QED at Port Washington, Long Island. Apparently the yacht almost hit three other boats while zooming around the port. This photo was sent out with a news story written by the photographer, John Drennan:

 

I like that one too.

Here's a close up of the boat and plane:

 

Some information I just found about the yacht from the Boston Public Library:

This yacht is the rather unique Q.E.D. designed by airplane designer Anthony Fokker and naval architect William Atkin. It was built by the Consolidated Shipbuilding Corporation at Morris Heights, New York, and was launched on June 20, 1938. In October 1939, it burned and sank in the Hudson River off Yonkers while taking a couple on a honeymoon cruise. Eleven persons in the 112-foot craft jumped to safety. A twelfth was drowned. (New York Times, 1939)

 

So it was a honeymoon cruise - 12 people jumped when it burned. Does that mean there were 10 staff? For two people?