Complete guide to digitising your old photos

Scanning photos doesn’t have to be an organisational nightmare. Jane Hoskyn explains how to digitise and sort whole albums of photos for free

You might assume that turning your dusty old photo prints into digital photos is a right palaver. And, until recently, you’d have been right. You had to fork out for an expensive flatbed scanner, then spend days, weeks and months using the infernal thing to churn out massive files with meaningless names like ‘1931304_47829780167_8088_n.TIFF’ – not the most charming title for an image of your wedding day.

But things have changed fast, thanks to powerful scanning and tagging tools that make this once-Herculean task quick and easy. Here, we reveal the best new ways to capture entire albums of prints, then organise them using tags so your favourite scanned photos are even easier to find than when they were in albums on your bookshelf - and it won’t cost you a penny.

Middle-Earth: Shadow of War

Talion sprints towards the walls of Seregost Castle, undaunted by the glittering volley of flaming arrows streaking towards him and his loyal Uruk army. Nearby, a deluge of crude orcish artillery lands, exploding into a fireball that blooms and dissipates, leaving only a shower of wet earth and green bodies tumbling in its wake.

Talion charges on. This haggard ranger of Gondor is technically a dead man – given life only by the elven wraith Celebrimbor that resides within his undying frame – but he is feared and despised by Sauron’s forces nonetheless, who trade foul stories of the Gravewalker’s unnatural abilities and martial might.

During his first tour of duty, Talion spent most of his time engaged in a scrappy guerrilla war, shanking the odd captain here and beheading the occasional warlord there. But this time, Talion’s mounting a siege on Sauron’s fortresses across Mordor and beyond – and he’s building an army to dismantle the Dark Lord’s forces.

Access hidden Netflix categories

Get more from streaming-TV services Netflix and Amazon Prime Video with our expert hacks and secret tips

Netflix offers thousands of movies and TV programmes to watch, which it organises into categories or genres. When you click the Browse link on the homepage, it displays around 20 categories. There are actually many more – hundreds, in fact – but you can’t see them. Luckily, there are several websites that provide links to them.

Visit bit.ly/genre418 and you’ll see a list containing dozens of categories. Click the link at the top to view the extended list, which contains many more. Not every link works because Netflix sometimes deletes categories, but many still function and contain fascinating movies you might otherwise miss. You’ll find an alternative source of Netflix categories at netflixcodes.me. These category links are a great way to discover different films and TV series.

Best Add-Ons For Anonymity

Lots of browser add-ons claim to keep you anonymous online, but many are ineffective. Here, we pick the nine tools you need to guarantee your privacy

Your Complete Guide to Staying Anonymous

You’re never alone on the web – there’s always someone or something watching you. Jane Hoskyn, Edward Munn and Robert Irvine explain how to beat the snoopers and be completely invisible online

Spammers, scammers and other snoopers have devious ways of tracking your every online move. Google knows more about what you’ve been up to than you do, and eavesdroppers have become adept at piecing together your so-called digital ‘fingerprint’ or ‘footprint’ from even your most mundane web activity – then using it to work out who you are, what you do and even where you live.

Fortunately, there are ways to dodge these spies, without sacrificing the pleasure and convenience of life online. We’re not about to tell you to delete your Facebook account, stop using Google tools altogether or turn to the Dark Web – well, you can if you want, but these extreme measures aren’t the only ways to guard your identity.