How do I prepare photos for scanning?

To prepare your archive of pictures, slides and other media follow the following rules.

We recommend scanning your photos by group, years, and/or by size.  The more sorting you do ahead of time, the better organized it is for you when we return your picture files. Sorting by group means by family, person, vacation, event, etc. Sorting by date could be by year, decade, range of days, eras, etc.  If you have standard sized prints, separating by size will save on cost (4 x 6, 5 x 7, etc.). The returned digital files will be easily identified by your designated sorting method. We offer consulting and actual organizational help as a service. For "Do's and Don'ts" for proper care and preparation of your photography, our technician offers tips on our blog page.

How will I receive my digital photo files?

We offer several options for you to receive your new digital archives.

The most efficient and fastest method for small orders is by internet via DropBox download. We send you a link in an email and the file folders are available to downloaded to your "Downloads folder" on your computer. What's nice about this method is you can pass along the link to family and friends for them to download also. The second method is by USB thumb drive or other small portable hard drive. Typically, a 500 picture archive will be around 350 MB in size. We can supply thumb drives up to 500+ GB’s for a ($5-$15), or you can give us a portable drive of your own. The third method is by CD-ROM or DVD-ROM data disc. Disc storage is old-world but still good as long as you have an optical drive to read them.

How much is this going to cost?

That's the number one question isn't it? Like a home it can be a mansion or a studio apartment. In photography terms it can be a suitcase full of pictures or a small set of envelopes. The cost per image goes down as the suitcase fills up. You can see the base prices on our service page, but let's give you a short scenario of a project.

Let's say you have 400 photos to scan. If these photos are all standard size prints covering many decades and there is no specialty items then the cost would be approximately $140. But in our experience no job is that clean. Your collection might include a number of polaroids which require individual scanning, slides that require specialized scanning, pictures in photo albums that must be removed or scanned as multiples and separated in the computer, Some photos may be ripped, folded, or dirty that you might want repaired or cleaned. You may have some enlargements you always wanted done or reproductions that need mounting for framing. Each project for us is uniquely different requiring good communication with you to organize, list special items, and identify damage repair work. Contact us through out contacts page and we can ask the right questions and get an idea of the size of your project.. We'll give you an estimated cost of the project and a timeline to delivery.