Having a photo scanning service would have helped my grandmother who was a genealogy guru. She spent hours and hours working on our family’s genealogy using her computer and the internet.
While she did use some software and scanned a few pictures the vast majority of her pictures were the traditional film type that everyone used before digital cameras became the norm.
When my grandmother passed away, almost a decade ago, my dad became the keeper of the photos. Once he retired he set out on the task of scanning all of those photos into his computer and storing them in multiple locations.
This was a huge task so I thought it might be nice to run through a photo scanning service review.
There are tons of these type of services and you can even get this doen locally at a premium at Ritz Camera, Wolf Camera, or Kinkos. I managed to narrow this down to just three that seem to be the best overall photo scanning service.
Least Expensive Photo Scanning Service
ScanCafe takes the cake when it comes to the combination of price and quality. They have an awesome feature that lets you pick and pay for only the phtots you want to keep.
You do have to keep at least 80% of the photos but that does not seem like a tall order. When it comes to the quality of their photo scanning service they only allow 600 dpi scanning which is a higher quality that some of the other services will allow.
They also claim that they only do their corrections for color issues by hand correction instead of auto correction. The only downside to this service is that they do the majority of their work in Bangalore, India.
So if it makes you a little uneasy about sending your family memories across the pacific that would be the only reason not to use this service.
Cost – $0.29 per picture or $0.22 per picture when you order 600 or more.
Other services – VHS, 8mm, Super 8, 16mm, and Super 16 film to DVD transfers
Best Quality Photo Scanning Service
The photo scanning service from ScanDigital is the best of the group.
While none of them are bad ScanDigital takes it to another level by manually rotating, cropping out excess black border, color correction, and remove dust and minor blemishes from any of the scans.
They do most of theire scans in 300 dpi but that can be upped for an additional charge. They also add some nice services like slide and negative scanning.
Cost – $0.48 per photo or $0.38 per photo minimum of 1000
Other services – Negative scanning, slide scanning, VHS, 8mm, Super8, and 16mm film to DVD transfers
Most Secure Photo Scanning Service
This might be a little misleading but when I say secure I really mean the one that will make you feel the most secure.
Digital Pickle runs its operation completely out of the U.S.A. With drop off locations in New York, NY, and Berkly, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, CA you can just leave your photos there and they will get them processes in about one week.
If you happen to live in or near one of these cities it may make you feel much safer than shipping them to India. They also have the widest variety of video transfer to DVD.
Cost – $0.25 per photo (300 dpi) and not bulk pricing
Other Services – VHS, DVcam, S-VHS, Betacam SP, VHS-C, U-Matic (3/4″), Betamax, and Laser Disc, 8mm, Super 8, and 16mm to DVD
From what I have seen and read from across the internet you cannot go wrong picking any of these three to complete your photo scanning service needs.
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