Photo scanning services?

[Wrace]

My late father was a very active amateur photographer and I have a significant amount of 35mm negatives/slides/and prints that I would like to convert to digital. In addition to all the photos that my wife and I have taken prior to the digital age.

I tried to scan them myself using a decent flatbed scanner and the results were actually pretty good. I got through about 30 of them over X amount of time and and realized that there is no way I have the patience or time for the task. It's just not going to happen.

I started searching around for info on the various photo scanning services. Found some info like this review website, but it was done in November 2016.
https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/th...nning-service/

I was considering using Costco first and see how that goes, but it sounds like they just send them out to some other outfit to process.

Anybody have experience in this area? Who did you use, were you happy with the process and the end result?

Thanks

[Gdetrailer]

Wrace wrote:

Gdetrailer wrote:

Bed scanner is part of your problem...

I can easily process 40 slides in 15 minutes with minor touch ups on each slide.. That is about 160 slides per hr.

The vendor they are using is YESVIDEO and you can contact them directly if you go to their website and get the phone number.. You can ask them what resolution they are using.. I would think it should be at least 4,200 DPI..

Yeah, there was no way I was able to get even remotely close to that rate of scan using the flatbed. It was very painful.

Looks like sams, costco, cvs, walmart and bartell are all using yesvideo. I will contact yesvideo and find out what resolution they are using. One advantage of using costco (in our case) is it's an easy drop off place. No need to mail them somewhere.

Legacy seems to get a good amount of positive reviews as well.

Separating the slides we want scanned vs the ones we don't is going to be a bit of task as well, given the quantity. Most of the slides are in metal cartridges (for lack of a better term) which are used in my fathers old projector and projected on a portable screen. As I recall there is a lever that moves in and out, and the cartridge moves forward (or backward) each time a new slide is needed. The projector and screen may very well still be in the attic at my sisters house.

I have been trying to review each slide using one of those handheld viewers but I can't get enough context to tell if it's a good image or not. It may be faster to set that screen up one afternoon and my sister and I can cycle through the cartridges, and pull out only the slides we want scanned. This process doesn't sound all that fun. It may take some beers to complete it.

Yeah, I would recommend setting up a projector, you don't need a screen just a white surface will do fine for previewing.

Even a sheet of white copier paper, white fridge door or white wall can work well enough to get the idea of what you want.

Actually, the process can be sort of fun, I started out being able to scan in then print thumbnail prints to show my Mom and Dad. put an album together and sat down one Sunday afternoon and My Mom and Dad was able to identify the people and places in the photos.

We made notes of each pix name with the names and places.

I was able to setup a word doc to overlay the names on the thumbnail prints..

Unfortunately, my Mom passed before I was able to scan them all in and my Dad's Dementia got too bad after my Mom passed to be of help so on the last thousand or so I had to figure out as best as I could.

I learned a lot of family history and and preserved the history that was lost when my Mom passed and Dementia took my Dads clarity of thought, that to me was well worth the time spent on this project.

My Mom showed me the importance of labeling photos, she had to toss thousands of photos that she could not identify the people after her parents passed.

You cannot put a price in money or time on history, once the knowledge is gone, it is over if no attempts are made to preserve it.

You are only going to want to do this once and that is why it is important to get as good of a transfer as possible the first time..

[Wrace]

Gdetrailer wrote:

Bed scanner is part of your problem...

I can easily process 40 slides in 15 minutes with minor touch ups on each slide.. That is about 160 slides per hr.

The vendor they are using is YESVIDEO and you can contact them directly if you go to their website and get the phone number.. You can ask them what resolution they are using.. I would think it should be at least 4,200 DPI..

Yeah, there was no way I was able to get even remotely close to that rate of scan using the flatbed. It was very painful.

Looks like sams, costco, cvs, walmart and bartell are all using yesvideo. I will contact yesvideo and find out what resolution they are using. One advantage of using costco (in our case) is it's an easy drop off place. No need to mail them somewhere.

Legacy seems to get a good amount of positive reviews as well.

Separating the slides we want scanned vs the ones we don't is going to be a bit of task as well, given the quantity. Most of the slides are in metal cartridges (for lack of a better term) which are used in my fathers old projector and projected on a portable screen. As I recall there is a lever that moves in and out, and the cartridge moves forward (or backward) each time a new slide is needed. The projector and screen may very well still be in the attic at my sisters house.

I have been trying to review each slide using one of those handheld viewers but I can't get enough context to tell if it's a good image or not. It may be faster to set that screen up one afternoon and my sister and I can cycle through the cartridges, and pull out only the slides we want scanned. This process doesn't sound all that fun. It may take some beers to complete it.

[Gdetrailer]

Wrace wrote:
Thanks for the replies.

My ultimate goal here is to produce a thumb drive (or other media) that contains these images to give to immediate family members. In addition I will use the digital images and the internet to help understand my fathers history better.

I think it's reasonable to assume I will want/need to improve the quality of some of the important images. (or have somebody do that for me) It's also reasonable to assume that these images will be used for everything from digital photo frames, to prints, maybe even having them play in a loop on a 30" flat panel tv mounted on the wall as I have seen some folks do. (although that may be stretching things a bit)

The flatbed scanner I own is the 6th or so one down in the list that Larry posted. Epson Perfection V500 (mine is the previous version to the one currently for sale). As I mentioned it worked good for the 30 or so negatives/slides I got scanned, but it is a very slow process and I'd like to get this done over the next several months if possible.

Bed scanner is part of your problem.

Takes time to load the adapter, time to scan the entire adapter then if the software does not have a way of automatically cutting the slides into separate files you have to manually do that process.

Additionally, because each slide may have variations in brightness, contrast, color, tint you will have to manually correct each one.. Not to mention, EVERY ROLL of film varies greatly and ages differently so that needs to be corrected for.

My old dedicated slide/negative scanner while it can be a bit slow, is most likely much faster than dealing with a bed scanner.

I can easily process 40 slides in 15 minutes with minor touch ups on each slide.. That is about 160 slides per hr.

Typically would do about 80 slides per evening and that was while watching TV and during commercials..

Yeah, there are folks using bed scanners with the slide adapters with decent results.but to me, that is a less efficient way and less prescanning control than a dedicated slide/negative scanner.

As far as sending out goes, yeah, that is still going to take time. Checked Sam's photo processing website, you will be looking at min 3 week turn around and they do send them out to a third party vendor.

Sam's website kind of has slides hidden, so HERE is the link..

The vendor they are using is YESVIDEO and you can contact them directly if you go to their website and get the phone number.. You can ask them what resolution they are using.. I would think it should be at least 4,200 DPI..

[T18skyguy]

I had Costco do mine and they came out just fine. You put 50 slides per box. A week later they hand you a very nice DVD with a title on the front with one of the pictures. Before we submitted, my wife and I culled the number of slides down to 200. Neither of us was interested in any scenery slides, only the ones that had people we know in them. The slides on the dvd come with a built in player that worked well on my pc. I can't remember the cost but it wasn't too bad.

[Wrace]

Thanks for the replies.

My ultimate goal here is to produce a thumb drive (or other media) that contains these images to give to immediate family members. In addition I will use the digital images and the internet to help understand my fathers history better.

I think it's reasonable to assume I will want/need to improve the quality of some of the important images. (or have somebody do that for me) It's also reasonable to assume that these images will be used for everything from digital photo frames, to prints, maybe even having them play in a loop on a 30" flat panel tv mounted on the wall as I have seen some folks do. (although that may be stretching things a bit)

The flatbed scanner I own is the 6th or so one down in the list that Larry posted. Epson Perfection V500 (mine is the previous version to the one currently for sale). As I mentioned it worked good for the 30 or so negatives/slides I got scanned, but it is a very slow process and I'd like to get this done over the next several months if possible.

[wa8yxm]

The answer depends on the number of photos you need to "Scan" Most Photo shops or camera departments in many Big Stores can either offer the service or point you to it. HOWEVER IT COSTS MONEY

Most bigger office supply stores can sell you special photo scanners where you can stuff either 20 photos or 20 slides (Number chosen at random in this case) and push a button and photos #1 to 20 suddenly appear on your hard drive.

I googled Photo Scanners and found a couple that might qualify.

My latest doctor has a scanner on the reception desk that scanned my Insurance cards and driver's license. I suspect it can do slides as well though it might take a different model.

Try "Slide scanner" instead of photo

[Bumpyroad]

DutchmenSport wrote:


The other method, and professional photographers have been doing this for the last hundred years to make copied of existing photos without negatives. Simply, take a photo of the photo. I've done a lot of this also.

yep, that was quick and easy when I copied mine. each "scan" took about 1/60 second. 🙂
zeroing in on the photo was quick and easy, once I broke down and bought a copy stand.
bumpy

[LarryJM]

Gdetrailer wrote:

Fizz wrote:

Wrace wrote:
I found this place on yelp, and it got very good reviews. Technically not really 'local' as it's about 4 hours away. But having to make the drive twice would be worth it to me to get it done.

This is their pricing page. Please take a look. Cost seems pretty reasonable? Standard pricing is for 600dpi. 1200dpi requires a .30 per image addition. I don't see a need for more than 600dpi for just run of the mill images?

I can bring in a portable HD or thumb drive and they will put the images on them.
http://www.lotusmedia.us/pricing-1.html

Nothing wrong with 600DPI.
Do a bit of research you will see it is more than adequate for your needs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh58Npzhci4

600 DPI IS TERRIBLE for 35mm slide or negatives, I have an 15yr old HP bed scanner which is 1200DPI which is double the resolution of that service..

If you want small 3.5x5 "print" equivalent quality then that would be "acceptable" but you ARE throwing away a huge amount of resolution.

And if you are wanting or would like to edit or cleanup the photos it IS a lost cause with too low of a DPI and will pixelate badly while editing the fine details or printing a larger print.

35 mm slides can easily be blown up to fit onto a projector screen which IS how they were originally viewed.

If you are going to go to the effort and cost of converting them to digital then using a the highest quality resolution only makes sense.

2400 native DPI would be the place to start at and that still falls short of what a 35mm slide can offer.

Now days the manual scanners are rating in MegaPixels instead of DPI, average seems to be 14 MP native and 22 MP through software.

14 MP is close to 4200 DPI..

HERE is a search for 35mm scanners.

I agree that 600dpi for slides is pretty much worthless if you ever want a print much larger than a wallet sized print. IMO a min of 2400 and better yet 4200 dpi is the best for slides which will give you good resolution for must prints up to 8x10. About 10 yrs ago I scanned over 5,000 slides and 15-20 albums using an Epson 4790 scanner and it IIRC could scan 4 slides/35mm negatives at a time which cut down on the time considerably. Yes it takes a long time, but it's a one time deal and I gave copies of everything to our sons so all those memories are safe forever. As a bonus our oldest has done several DVDs using the photos memorializing various events/time frames in our lives.

Larry

[Fizz]

It comes down to basics.
What will you do with these photos, blow them up to poster size or view them on your tablet?
I don’t remember the last time I set up the 35mm projector. Some pictures I only saw once. Now everything is digitized and easy to look at and pass around like an old fashioned photo album. Crystal clear on my iPad.

[Gdetrailer]

Fizz wrote:

Wrace wrote:
I found this place on yelp, and it got very good reviews. Technically not really 'local' as it's about 4 hours away. But having to make the drive twice would be worth it to me to get it done.

This is their pricing page. Please take a look. Cost seems pretty reasonable? Standard pricing is for 600dpi. 1200dpi requires a .30 per image addition. I don't see a need for more than 600dpi for just run of the mill images?

I can bring in a portable HD or thumb drive and they will put the images on them.
http://www.lotusmedia.us/pricing-1.html

Nothing wrong with 600DPI.
Do a bit of research you will see it is more than adequate for your needs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh58Npzhci4

600 DPI IS TERRIBLE for 35mm slide or negatives, I have an 15yr old HP bed scanner which is 1200DPI which is double the resolution of that service..

If you want small 3.5x5 "print" equivalent quality then that would be "acceptable" but you ARE throwing away a huge amount of resolution.

And if you are wanting or would like to edit or cleanup the photos it IS a lost cause with too low of a DPI and will pixelate badly while editing the fine details or printing a larger print.

35 mm slides can easily be blown up to fit onto a projector screen which IS how they were originally viewed.

If you are going to go to the effort and cost of converting them to digital then using a the highest quality resolution only makes sense.

2400 native DPI would be the place to start at and that still falls short of what a 35mm slide can offer.

Now days the manual scanners are rating in MegaPixels instead of DPI, average seems to be 14 MP native and 22 MP through software.

14 MP is close to 4200 DPI..

HERE is a search for 35mm scanners.

[DutchmenSport]

As you found out, scanning takes a lot of time! And if you find a company that can do it, I'm sure it's going to cost you a small fortune.

There are actually 2 ways to "scan" a photo, and I've done both. Of course, modern technology has made scanners better and better. This method is slow and time consuming.

The other method, and professional photographers have been doing this for the last hundred years to make copied of existing photos without negatives. Simply, take a photo of the photo. I've done a lot of this also.

With advent of the "SmartPhone" and Digital Camera, taking a digital photo of an existing photo is extreamly simple, and the result are really good. It can be a bit of work to eliminate glare and a sharp focus. This is way old-school copy photography used tripods and selected lighting methods. (I've done this too, and it does work, with old school cameras (35 MM cameras), and even with digital cameras. But with Smart Phones, it's even faster and quicker.

At any rate, it might be an alternative to consider, ... photo of a photo with digital camera. I almost guarantee you, that's how a professional scanner service will do it. It's so much faster than a flat top scanner, once you've got the space and equipment set up, and then it's just a matter of repeat, repeat, repeat taking photos of photos.

[Cameo_Phil]

Try LegacyBox .com, they may be what you are looking for.
Legacy Box

[Fizz]

Wrace wrote:
I found this place on yelp, and it got very good reviews. Technically not really 'local' as it's about 4 hours away. But having to make the drive twice would be worth it to me to get it done.

This is their pricing page. Please take a look. Cost seems pretty reasonable? Standard pricing is for 600dpi. 1200dpi requires a .30 per image addition. I don't see a need for more than 600dpi for just run of the mill images?

I can bring in a portable HD or thumb drive and they will put the images on them.
http://www.lotusmedia.us/pricing-1.html

Nothing wrong with 600DPI.
Do a bit of research you will see it is more than adequate for your needs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh58Npzhci4

[Gdetrailer]

Wrace wrote:
I found this place on yelp, and it got very good reviews. Technically not really 'local' as it's about 4 hours away. But having to make the drive twice would be worth it to me to get it done.

This is their pricing page. Please take a look. Cost seems pretty reasonable? Standard pricing is for 600dpi. 1200dpi requires a .30 per image addition. I don't see a need for more than 600dpi for just run of the mill images?

I can bring in a portable HD or thumb drive and they will put the images on them.
http://www.lotusmedia.us/pricing-1.html

That is horrible resolution.

I bought a native 2400 DPI manual 35mm and slide scanner many years ago for about $200.

I did that because my Dad wanted to setup his projector one day and we started looking at the slides realizing they were DEGRADING BADLY.

I took on the project at first to scan in my parents wedding pictures for their 40th anniversary. Mom had always fussed that when they got married they couldn't afford a photographer and had one of her Uncles take the photos on slides, she never had prints.

I scanned in the wedding slides then spent two weeks cleaning them with Photoshop to remove the imperfections and damage from time..

Then we had Walmart print them in 8x10s put them into an album along with many other family photos of my brothers and sisters growing up.

My Mom was very happy to have those photos and really cherished the keepsake album.

Took a few years to scan in the rest of my Dads slides and after nearly 4,000 slides I put them all onto DVDs and handed them to my Brothers and Sisters.

I would suggest if you don't want to scan them in yourself then check out Costco or Sam's club. They most likely will send them out to a third party but it will be done for less than many of the other services you will find.

Personally, I would suggest, previewing all of the slides with a projector.

Then decide which ones to scan in and which not to, this will save you from paying for ones that are over or under exposed or just plain no good.

You do also need to understand, NONE of the scanning services will do corrections in brightness/contrast/color/tint.. What you send them will simply get scanned in as is and that is that.

Fixing them will be up to you.

For myself, I am glad I took the time to do it myself, I was able to recover hundreds of photos from slides that were badly exposed and some looked nearly black..

The scanner I bought has many controls to allow me to preview the slide and adjust brightness/contrast/color/tint before scanning in.

Then after scanning in I was able to use Photoshop to fine tune the recovered photo so it almost looked normal.

Most bed scanners simply do not have this level of control..

You could also split up the slides, by a standalone scanner and scan in the "keepers" and for less important slides send them out..