Digital Imaging & 35mm Slide Scanning FAQ

Q. I have an HD, big screen TV. How will your scans display on this type of TV?
A. We scan at 2,500ppi. Your final image size will be 1293 x 1920 pixels. The highest resolution HDTV available today is 1080 x 1920 pixels. Naturally, the quality of your final image is going to be greatly dependent on the quality of your original slide. Sometimes people think that their slides are in better shape or sharper than they really are. For our own reputation, we are going to get the images as sharp as possible. The display on your widescreen TV will depend on how you have your TV setup. Our slide show is set up to display in the 4:3 mode. You should be able to set your TV up to display in 4:3 or 16:9.
Q. Why would people that care enough about their slide and photo collection to digitize it, send their whole collection to the other side of the world, to India, to save a few dollars?
A. It is probably because they are sucked in by the unbelievably low prices and they never read the fine print in the "terms and conditions" when they have to sign up for an "account." We have been theatened with a lawsuit in a letter from a lawyer representing one of these companies, if we keep telling people their identity. They do NOT want anyone to know what they are doing because they know that most people would not knowingly agree to sending their photo collection 9,000 miles away to a third world country no matter how much money they save. We'd like to tell you their name but, at our low profit margin, we just can't afford to do it. The rule might be: if the price is unbelievably low, your heirloom photos are going to India.
Q. If I want to get the images printed, what size can they be printed at?
A. You can print at 4x6" or 5x7" and up to 8x10". The more you blow up an image after that, the grainier it will get but we are very satisfied with our print results even when blowing up to a 10x15" print. A regular size 35mm slide will fit perfectly on a 4x6" and a 10x15" print. When you print this size slide on a 5x7 or 8x10, you will either have some white area or you can crop some of the image and print full size. This is because the proportion of the print is different from the proportion of the slide. You can see some samples of prints from slides by clicking here.
Q. I am an artist and I require the highest quality scanning I can find.
A. We would suggest that all artists wanting to digitize their work, should use our higher resolution scanning rather than our standard scanning service. It should also be noted that taking pictures of artwork will never match the actual artwork in anyone's eyes no matter how high the resolution the slide is then scanned at, let alone the artist. You really might be happier getting some company to do "drum scanning" for you at $30 a slide but I have seen some artists that are not even happy with those results. We don't do drum scanning.
Q. Do you use batch color correction filters, like ROC and GEM, on all scans to automate your color correction process?
A. We do have those tools available to us but we have a Photoshop® expert view each individual scan and make any corrections that are needed. We find the eye of an expert much more accurate than just running each image through an automated filter. These types of filters give good results on some images but, on others, they can be a disaster. Computers are great but you can't beat the human eye and brain for making these types of decisions.
Q. I just want the scans and no slide show so that I can use the images in other programs or to print them. Do you do that? Can you put them on a CD and not a DVD?
A. Yes, just make it clear on your order form exactly what you want.
Q. Will you do higher resolution scanning for me if I really want it ?
A. Yes. We don't think that 99% of our customers really need to pay to have their slides scanned at an exceedingly high resolution unless they plan on having prints made that are huge, but we can do it for you. We offer scanning at 3200ppi and 4800ppi for those that have extraordinary needs. Please see our order form for higher resolution scanning. You will have to separate the slides out from your the regular slides and they cannot be intermingled into the slide show with the normal scans..
Q. I have a MAC. Will I be able to use your disks on my Mac?
A. If you request it, we will store your images on a plain CD or DVD disk with no slide show. On our standard disks, we store the high resolution images of your slide scans on the CD and you should be able to pull the images onto your Mac if you have the correct extensions loaded. We do not have a Mac that we can experiment with but we have read that you need to load the Foreign File Access Extension. This is an extension for the Apple operating system that makes it possible to read CD-Audio (ISO 9660) and CD-ROM (High Sierra Format) disc. (Whether or not the Mac can read our disk cannot be predicted. You should get one of our free demo disks to make sure if that is important to you.) Included on the CD is a slide show that is playable on your PC. The CDs will also play a slide show on most DVD players that will play the VCD format. (90% of the DVD players manufactured in the last 6 years can play the VCD2 disks.) The slide show and the images are DVD quality.
The slide show is free. The price is the same for our scanning service whether you get the slide show or not. The hardest part of the job is the transfer to digital format.
If you don't want the slide shows, make a note on the order form.
Q. I inherited my grandfather\'s stereo slides, which include my parents 1955 wedding photos. Can you tell me what your warranty is for your work, and also what guarantee you have regarding the handling and care of the original slides?
A. Your slides and photos are irreplaceable until they are digitized. We will guarantee that we will take care of your slides and photos like they were our own and we will do the same with the transfer to digital. We look at our work as helping you preserve your slides or photos by transferring to digital format. Our reputation is at stake and we have never had an unhappy customer. We get as many new customers from referrals and returning customers as we do from our website.
Q. I numbered my 35mm slides and photos. Will the numbers on the images match the numbers on my photos?
A. We are not going to be able to guarantee that every image will match up with the number on the back of each picture or slide. This would require looking at each picture, once again, and checking it to the image on the computer and comparing names and numbers. This would be more than could be expected and too labor intensive for our low prices. The scanning is semi-automated and, if a slide is bent or defective, it may not feed correctly and will be skipped. (This does not happen often but it does happen and so we only charge for the actual scans that we do.) This would throw off the batch renaming of the images. The purpose of your numbering should be to keep the photos in proper order, not to ID them.
Q. When I play your disk on different DVD players, the timing is very slightly different. Can you fix that?
A. As you can see from your testing our disk on three different players, each player interprets the disk a little differently. This is not to be unexpected. You can go to Blockbuster and rent commercial DVDs that will not play on certain players. The DVD player's electronics all depend on a lot of different electrical components manufactured by multiple lowest bidders in Thailand, Korea, China or etc. While one would hope for some consistency in the players, the one consistent thing here is our disk. It is the same no matter which player it is put in.
Q. Can you define some of the unfamiliar terms that are used on this site?
A. Yes. Click here for a Glossary of Terms used on Old Photo.
Q. Are my slides and/or pictures returned to me after they are digitized?
A. Yes. Everything is returned that you want returned when your project is complete.
We have had a number of people that have sent many 35mm slide carousels filled with slides and told us to dispose of them when we are done. They have what they wanted: digitized images. They no longer have a need for the slides and don't want to pay to have them shipped back and they don't want to have to store them any longer.
Q. Are there any further discounted prices if I have, say, 5,000 or 10,000 slides?
A. I'm sorry but our listed prices are the absolute lowest we can go. There is a point where it is no longer profitable for us to do a job. We are too close to that point now.
Q. My mother and father have an anniversary party coming up in two weeks and I can't wait until the end of your job queue. Is there any way for me to get put ahead of other orders?
A. Well, you can get your job "expedited" but you will have to pay our workers overtime pay. Our regular customers are given their Project Target Dates according to straight time rates. None of our regular customers are slighted in the least and will still stay on their schedule. In this way we can be fair to all customers, you can get your scanning project done when you need it and our hungry technicians can make some extra money.
Q. I need a color accurate transfer of my slides to digital format. How can you do that for your low prices per slide?
A. We deal with a lot of old slides and some of them need a lot of tweaking just to get them to look acceptable. We are looking for "pleasing color" so that, when a person looks at the DVD slide show, they see a pleasing picture. If you want an exact color match from slide to digital, you are going to be paying between $15 to $30 or more per slide depending on where you have them done. We don't do that. We offer an excellent product and value for your money. Our customers have been perfectly happy with our service. (See Testimonials) You just can't expect $30 color matching for our minimal pricing. We are looking for pleasing color and pleasing color has to be in the eye of our Photoshop expert since this is a subjective decision. We offer a free sample scan of 10 of your slides so you can see what you are gong to get. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose by doing our free sample scans. We offer an inexpensive alternative to high-end drum scanning. When you sign our order form, you agree to let our Photoshop experts make the decision of what pleasing color is. We hope you understand that this is the only possible way that we can make any money at this. If we had to make rescans and new disks if a customer did not agree to what pleasing color was, we couldn't stay in business.
Q. Why don't you have the fancy transitions between "slides" in your VCDs slide show?
A. We don't provide the transitions on our standard VCD2 disks because we feel the ability to have the DVD slide show, the PC slide show and store the images on the same disk is the best combination. We can make you a DVD-R slide show disk that will have transitions on it and it will store your images on that disk too.
Q. Do you archive my Digital Images?
A. Yes, this is part of our service. We will store your images indefinitely just in case you want to have copies of your slide show made in the future. We do it for your convenience. We urge you to purchase or make your own duplicates.
Q. What is the resolution that you scan the slides at?
A. Standard 35mm Slides are scanned at 2500ppi or dpi and saved at a Final resolution of a 6.5 " x 5.375" image, at 300ppi or dpi and industry standard JPG quality of 10. This is a high quality scan and is going to be more than sufficient for most uses other than blowing up to a huge size for printing. Paying a higher price for a higher resolution scan is not going to benefit most people. They are just wasting their money. If you just want to make 4x6", 5x7" or 8x10" prints from these images, you will be just fine. Why pay for extra ppi if you don't need it? Its like paying for high octane premium gasoline when your engine will run perfectly fine on regular unleaded. It can make the difference between having your slide conversion be affordable or not. Why don't you take advantage of our free sample scan and demo disk offer and see for yourself exactly what you are going to get?
Q. What is the size that I will end up with when you are done scanning my paper photos?
A. We save the images at the original size and at 600 pixels per inch.
Q. I have 35mm slides that all have 2" x 2" mounts but they have different film sizes. Do I have to sort them into categories by film size?
A. No. As long as the mounts are the same, it doesn't matter what the film size is.
Q. I have hundreds of 35mm slides and photos, do I have to count them all before I send them to you?
A. No. When we are done scanning them, all we have to do is see how many images we have. No manual counting is necessary unless you want to do it. Just don't be surprised at how many final scans there are.
Q. How many 35mm slides can you fit on a CD?
A. 310 slides would be pretty close when we save them at an industry standard JPEG image high quality of 10.
Q. How many 35mm slides can you fit on a DVD-R?
A. 650 slides would be pretty close when we save them at an industry standard JPEG image high quality of 10.
Q. Can I get my scans divided into different folders or shows or chapters?
A. Yes. Put your 35mm slides or photos into separate envelopes or plastic bags, or rubber band them and label them appropriately. Separate stacks of 35mm slides or photos will be considered to be separate "shows" unless clearly noted. For instance, mark the slide stack as "Show 1A" and then the next one "Show 1B" and so on. This way we will know that you want stacks 1A, 1B and 1C all in "show" number one. We will do up to 12 "shows" included with your order for free but each additional "show" will cost $1 extra. See our instructions for Slide Preparation.
Q. In a batch of several hundred slides there are some natural sub groupings Can these be set up in "albums" .. and can these albums be accessed individually (i.e. 100 slides on Paris, 200 slide on 1965, 50 on School, 132 on Vacation) or do you need to run through the whole show to see something?
A. At the beginning of the slide show, you will see a menu with the first picture from each "album" or "show" or "chapter" on the disk being the visual display.
There can be multiple "albums" on the disk. The way we normally set up the disk is so that, if you do not hit the "stop" button on your remote, the slide show will play from the point that you start it until you stop it, all through the disk. If you hit your stop button, you will go back to the start of the disk and the menu where you can select another "album" to play.
If you wish, we can set up the disk so that it will only play one album and then go back to the main menu for another selection. We don't recommend this as it is a little more work to play the pictures than most people would like. It is up to you.
Q. TIMING :(# seconds on each picture before the next one).
Is this user-defined and changeable, or fixed? If fixed/unchangeable what is the (recommended) delay?
(Too long and it gets boring...too short and you don't enjoy the details).
A. The default is 5 seconds. This is most desirable for most people. We can set the timing for whatever you want but there is an extra charge for this.
Every DVD player that we have tested has had the ability to fast forward or go in reverse from picture to picture with our disks so, if the pictures are moving too slowly, you can always fast forward. You can't slow them down though. Therefore, I would advise having the timing long enough for anyone that may want extra time.
Q. Can you scan pictures if they are still on the album page?
A. Yes but we will have to charge extra for the extra work involved. Click here for details.
Q. I have been trying to decide if I will get my old slides scanned to CDs. Now I have seen all this bad publicity about 2 to 5 year life expectancy for CDs. What can you tell me about your experience with life expectancy?
A. We have been doing this business for four years and I can go back to disks that we created back at the start and they are still fine. I have read the same articles that you have and it is a concern.
Because of that concern and for the peace of mind of our customers, we archive all jobs to Hard Disk Backup Drives and store the drives, once they become close to full. We offer this additional service at no added charge.

If you are more comfortable with having your images put on a DVD disk, then we can do that. Most DVD players will play a slide show of images that are placed on a DVD.

I would say, go with our CD disk and make yourself multiple copies as backups OR have us write your images to a DVD disk. Whatever way you choose, we certainly advise you to keep moving your images to newer types of media as they come out. I would say that, in ten years, nobody is going to even be thinking about DVDs any longer, just like hardly anyone remembers Betamax tapes and VHS tapes will soon be a thing of the past also. We get quite a few calls from people wondering if it is possible to make prints from the VHS tapes that they had their slides transferred to in the past. We have to tell them that there is no way that they can get a good print from a VHS tape. They have to have their slides converted to digital and start all over again. With our method, you have the digital images and you can keep moving them to each new digital storage medium.
Q. Do you charge extra for the disks?
A. No. There are no hidden charges. The cost of the disks are figured into the overall cost. If we can't fit all your scans on one disk, we will put them on additional disks at no extra charge.
Q. I live in Canada and I am afraid of sending my photos out of the country.
A. We understand your concerns although, over the last 5+ years that we have been in this business, we have never had a problem with any delivery service,either to us or from us, USA or Canada. We even have former customers in Korea and Australia. Some people, to cut down on their "worry time," send overnight and/or by a service that offers on-line tracking, such as FedEx or UPS. Some of our customers will divide their collections up and send in different boxes.

Personally, if I were to send something that I didn't want to take a chance of losing, I would pack them in the biggest and strongest box I could find. Biggest being the key here since smaller things would tend to be easier to lose, if anything was going to be lost. Its not going to cost much more than sending a small box as long as you use some light packing materials such as foam peanuts or something similar.

And really, your one concern is to get the photos to us. Once we have them, they will be digitized and, therefore, preserved forever from any further deterioration, damage or loss.

I hope you can overcome your fears and we can do your scanning for you.
Q. Some of my scans look a little less colorful than I remember the slides.
A. The transfer from one medium to another is not perfect. Shadow areas tend to fill in in the scanning process and when we try to open up the shadows in Photoshop, some contrast and depth of color will be lost while looking for more details. It is a balancing act. Please remember that the slide is made for viewing with a light that is projected through the film and the colors. With scanning, you are converting to a completely different method of viewing. Printing puts a whole new transfer from one medium to another into the mix.
Q. Do you convert digital images to slides?
A. No. We don't have the equipment for that process.
Q. What about copyrights on photos?
A. We do not scan copyright protected photos. Because of our high volume of scanning a copyright protected slide or photo may slip past our operators. If a picture has a copyright stamp on it you sign off on taking all responsibility by signing our order form.
Q. Do you accept Credit Cards?
A. Yes for deposits. We will take your personal check to pay your final invoice.
Q. Do you accept personal checks?
A. Yes.
Q. Some of the images in my slide show have dirt on them.
A. Our equipment is clean. Your slides had dirt on them. We do not do slide cleaning. There is too much risk of damaging your slides. We don't like the dirt any more than you do. If your slides are clean, you will end up with a clean image. Click here for info on cleaning 35mm slides.
Q. First, let me compliment you on one of the best and most informative photo sites that I have seen. I shoot both 35mm and 645 format photos, all transparencies. I shoot mainly landscapes with my 645 and wildlife with the 35mm. What is the best way to handle my transparencies, given that I have 2 objectives:

1) I am planning a website so will need to get my photos displayed on the web. What resolution should my transparencies be scanned at for that purpose? Would it be the same for both 35mm and 645?

2) I plan to produce at least some photographs from my transparencies. Up to 11x14 from the 35mm and up to 16x20 or slightly larger from the 645. What scan resolution would I need for that?

3) Would it be better to just scan at a lower resolution for use on my website and then have photos made from the actual transparency rather than from a scan (if I am understanding how the process works.)

A. I would say that your best results for making enlargements would be to go directly from your transparencies. Any time you transfer from one medium to another, you lose something. Going from Transparency to digital and then to prints would not be as good as going directly from the transparency to the print.

I would recommend not having your websized image any larger than 800 pixels wide just for loading time for people that want to view your site. Lots of people still don't have high speed Internet. You can see some of our images that are this size at this page:
http://www.old-photo.com/web-page-demo/hawaii_000.htm
Q. I found your site through Google and was pleased as to what I found. It seems you offer great services to the public.
However, I may have missed something. I do understand that you do great things in the area of restoration, etc., but all I'm looking for is to get my slides converted to clear, sharp prints without the use of internegatives. Is it possible to use your service for my purpose?
A. We scan the slides to digital format. We can then make prints from the digital images. The clearness and sharpness of a print will be determined by the original slide. The transfer from one medium to another is not perfect. Shadow areas tend to fill in in the scanning process and when we try to open up the shadows in Photoshop, some contrast and depth of color will be lost while looking for more details. It is a balancing act. Please remember that the slide is made for viewing with a light that is projected through the film and the colors. With scanning, you are converting to a completely different method of viewing. Printing puts a whole new transfer from one medium to another into the mix.

I would suggest that you submit 10 of your slides for our free demo scan and slide show disk and then, if you are happy with the scans, we can go from there.