Slide/Negative/Print scanning – service providers?

[Makers Mark]

My late father was a pretty avid amateur photographer and my wife and I are blessed with many slides, negatives and prints from his life, including a stint with the Navy SeaBees. I also have a bunch of other family images through several generations, and a bunch from my wife and my pre-digital days. Over the years I've made several attempts to convert them to digital so I can more easily share them with family, and simplify storage and access. (I'll of course still keep the negative/prints as well). At one point I purchased a fairly decent flatbed scanner but it was a painstakingly tedious and slow process.

This year we have started using some new digital photo frames and they work really well. So much so that we have gifted them to all immediate family members as well. We have had various frames in the past but they required uploading the files via a card, and the resolution really wasn't that good. The new one's upload from our devices through our router and to the frame. This method is much easier to use and as such we are using the frames much more.

The bottom line is I'm not getting the scanning thing done, in part because it is a time consuming and overwhelming process to scan all these items. To date I've resisted sending them to one of the major processors that offer the service for fear of loss etc. However, at this point I think that's the only way it's going to get done.

Anybody have experience with the various image scanning service providers?

Thanks

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[Lilhigbee]

Video Services in Portland. I've had them do a number of projects like this for me. Always happy with the results and the price.

Video Services Duplicate The Good Times – Video – Audio – Film Duplication

 

[teflon6string]

Slides need to be converted to digital because they WILL decay over time, even well protected.

Another option for digitizing precious pics is to do them yourself, perhaps defraying the cost of a decent back-lit scanner with high DPI (crucial for turning tiny 35mm slides into usable larger images).

Epson Perfection V600 Photo Scanner | Products | Epson US

The Epson Perfection V600 Photo delivers outstanding quality scans from photos, film, slides and everyday documents. With 6400 x 9600 dpi resolution, this high performance scanner ensures precision film scanning for sharp, vivid reproductions up to 17 x 22 Featuring DIGITAL ICE® for both film...

epson.com

It's somewhat labor intensive, but I managed to scan a few/several sheets every day last winter (12 slides at a time) by quickly stepping into my home office whenever I walked down the hall. I use a stand-up desk so I never even sat down. Dropped them into the template, dusted them off, clicked Scan and walked away. The scanner and computer worked on the job while I did other stuff. Dropped back in between 10-minute chores to repeat. A good scanner will also do negatives of all sizes and large/small prints.

Net result after a few weeks for me was half a century of my dad's excellent family pics taken in a dozen countries - several hundred high quality .jpgs (you choose the format) to retouch, crop, archive and share with appreciative relatives on cheap thumb drives.

I went the "manual" route because most of those little $150 batch scanner devices tend to crop edges off the images, tint them all slightly green/red and render gloomy, garish contrast, ruining many shots. Like I said, it can be a big job depending on how many slides you have, but I had control at every step along the way and was extremely pleased with the results.

 

[ATCclears]

@Makers Mark many options.

Years ago we had some slides digitized at Costco (pic shot by my Father-in-Law from long ago). Costco did a good job. You might see if that is still a service they offer.

Potential options around Seattle.
Moon Photo Lab - Seattle's Premier Photo Lab
Seattle Photo Lab, prints, Panda, Panda Lab,

Mail-in option
Photo Lab Film Developing | Develop Film by Mail for $12 - The Darkroom

 

[made in china]

Slides need to be converted to digital because they WILL decay over time, even well protected.

Another option for digitizing precious pics is to do them yourself, perhaps defraying the cost of a decent back-lit scanner with high DPI (crucial for turning tiny 35mm slides into usable larger images).

Epson Perfection V600 Photo Scanner | Products | Epson US

The Epson Perfection V600 Photo delivers outstanding quality scans from photos, film, slides and everyday documents. With 6400 x 9600 dpi resolution, this high performance scanner ensures precision film scanning for sharp, vivid reproductions up to 17 x 22 Featuring DIGITAL ICE® for both film...

epson.com

It's somewhat labor intensive, but I managed to scan a few/several sheets every day last winter (12 slides at a time) by quickly stepping into my home office whenever I walked down the hall. I use a stand-up desk so I never even sat down. Dropped them into the template, dusted them off, clicked Scan and walked away. The scanner and computer worked on the job while I did other stuff. Dropped back in between 10-minute chores to repeat. A good scanner will also do negatives of all sizes and large/small prints.

Net result after a few weeks for me was half a century of my dad's excellent family pics taken in a dozen countries - several hundred high quality .jpgs (you choose the format) to retouch, crop, archive and share with appreciative relatives on cheap thumb drives.

I went the "manual" route because most of those little $150 batch scanner devices tend to crop edges off the images, tint them all slightly green/red and render gloomy, garish contrast, ruining many shots. Like I said, it can be a big job depending on how many slides you have, but I had control at every step along the way and was extremely pleased with the results.

A good thing about those scanners, is that unlike a printer which is expensive to maintain and prone to failure, these scanners usually last many many years.
You could consider buying it, keep all of the packaging and when you are done with the scanning project, pack it up all nicely and put it on eBay and see if you can get 1/2 your money back. Or pass it on to a friend or family member for their collections.

 

[Makers Mark]

Thanks for the replies. Much to consider.

We actually have that V600 scanner and it does work very well, but is of course somewhat manually intensive. teflons approach is highly disciplined, not sure I could pull that off given the amount of pictures/negatives/slides that we have. I will say that scanner does an excellent job quality wise. I think I made to ~50 slides and ran out of motivation and/or patience the first go-around.

We have a costco with a photo department fairly close, and the mail-order route is attractive as well. Maybe I'll try a few slides with each outfit and see how it goes before committing a large batch.

Need to somehow get organized. Right now all of the negatives, prints, slides are in boxes (in a climate controlled environment, still likely that some are damaged).

And there are a bunch of 'magazines' with slides loaded in them that are intended to be used with an attachment to a projector, along with a screen. You move the lever and the magazine advances one spot to the next slide. I can't remember if I kept the screen and projector or not. May need to remove them and use some sort of viewer to evaluate whether they are worth scanning. Or... scan everything and use the PC to establish which ones to keep. I can't remember if the V600 had frames that would hold multiple slides which could be scanned in one operation.

Thanks again.

 

[teflon6string]

During half a year of visits with my mom, we went through 20k+ slides in carousel trays (holding 100ea.) with a projector and screen,. Very entertaining (once) since it was the first time we'd seen most of those pics in over half a century. Noted which ones were keepers and tossed the rest. Trouble was, Pop was a great photographer and sometimes it felt like throwing out art.

The Epson V600 does indeed have a frame/template that lets you scan and save 12 slides at time with a single push of a button.

 

[Makers Mark]

During half a year of visits with my mom, we went through 20k+ slides in carousel trays (holding 100ea.) with a projector and screen...

That's outstanding. I wish that my sister or I would have had that foresight, both our parents died relatively young.