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You can scan photos by buying an inexpensive flatbed scanner or use an app on your smartphone such as HP Smart.

The years-long, labor-intensive process of converting paper graphics into digital data required a small squadron of undergraduate assistants and a special flatbed scanner, but when it was done, Bromirski had a solid record of wave activity along the California coast stretching back to the Great Depression.

If you already have a flatbed scanner for documents and photos, check your model’s manual to see if it can handle slides and film negatives, as some include that ability.

The notable photographs and prints are Franz Jantzen’s stitched-together vision of a multi-mooned night sky, viewed through oaks and Spanish moss; Colby Caldwell’s near-abstract tree trunk, digitized with a flatbed scanner; and Tanya Marcuse’s update of “The Book of Miracles,” a 16th-century illuminated manuscript, that arrays plants and snakes on a coal-black backdrop.

There is a flatbed scanner and an auto document feed for scans and copies, but you’ll control those from the HP Smart app on your Android, iOS, macOS or Windows device.