Digitizing slides and pictures

[CJ2008]

Hi

A relative's 50th is coming up and we're thinking (as part of their gift) to do either a poster or digital photo album with pictures from their childhood. We were able to get our hands on some slides, etc., but we have no idea which service to use. I feel like we should use a company that specializes in this (rather than CVS, for example). But maybe CVS could be OK? We just want to make sure they're reliable, will turn around good quality, and of course, not lose any of our originals!

Have you ever used a service like this that you can recommend?

Thanks

 

[aviastar]

My husband and I just bought a negative scanner for ourselves for much the same purpose! I think it was about $100 from Amazon and we're just going to DIY! We've tried a few so far and it's super easy.

 

[CJ2008]

Thanks, Aviastar...I had not considered getting our own scanner, but I'm not that I want to deal with another piece of equipment, even though I'm sure we'd get to use it again...

Which brand did you buy, and what is the quality of the output like?

 

[JewelFreak]

My Canon scanner does negatives & slides as well as regular stuff. The output quality is great -- depends also on your photo editor; I use Paintshop. I've scanned all of those media for DH's 6 books on vintage car racing & they come out super for publication, so for a photobook should work fine. You may not want to hassle with it, but I love doing it. Think the scanner was around $100+.

 

[CJ2008]

Which scanner do you have specifically Laurie? I'd love to check it out.

The idea is growing on me...especially because it's not like we have tons of pictures to scan...

 

[soocool]

I have scanners on my all in one printers and am almost done scanning all my photos. From there I upload them to Shutterfly and also back them up on an external hard drive. I would love to get a negatives scanner, but wonder if it would be cheaper to do it through a service since once I have scanned the negatives, I would have no need for it. I think any camera/ photo store like Ritz Camera could scan negatives, photos, and slides for you and give you a better price if you have a pretty decent amount. I have seen places like Bed Bath and Beyond and Kohls carry the scanner for negatives for around $100 . Don't know how good theybturn out though. Perhaps checking some out on Amazon and see what people think in their reviews.

 

[qtiekiki]

Not sure if you bought a scanner already. But even though we got married in the digital age, our photographer used film. We scanned all the negatives at Target, and the quality of the digital files look good on the computer. I had printed from them, and the prints look good too.

 

[aviastar]

Thanks, Aviastar...I had not considered getting our own scanner, but I'm not that I want to deal with another piece of equipment, even though I'm sure we'd get to use it again...

Which brand did you buy, and what is the quality of the output like?

Hi CJ, we bought this one : http://www.amazon.com/Canon-CanoSca...54049138&sr=8-1&keywords=canon+canoscan+9000f

It's a little more expensive than I thought, although there are some used ones available, too. We plan on using this for hundreds of photos; old family photos from both sides and I also used to play around with photography and I have BOXES of negatives that I don't even remember taking. So we picked this one because it scans something like 10 pictures at a time and the resolution is pretty high. We've tried a few so far and the quality is certainly high enough for digital publishing and print publishing. And it will scan photos, too.

Hope that helps!