So I decided to haul the box up to the nearest photo developing store (yes they do in fact still exist) and get a quote. I then left and put the box back in its final resting spot. It is incredibly expensive to get physical format negatives scanned let alone printed. Wow!
Fortunately I came across Scancafe. They scan your negatives for a fraction of the price. Price list is here. In some cases it was 5 to 10 times cheaper. And if you don't like a photo you don't pay for it (up to a certain limit). How are they so much cheaper?
Turns out your media is sent to India to be scanned. I believe they repackage individual packages into one mega-package in order to save on costs.
So the obvious downside is that it takes a while to get your negatives scanned. And I mean a while! I placed my order January 14 and they were finally scanned for review on March 22. I knew this beforehand and my feelings are who cares how long it takes. These negatives have been sitting in a box doing nothing for years.
It's a nice process.
- Bundle everything up into a box.
- Estimate how many you have and what type
- Get your price, pay, and print out shipping materials
- Take it to UPS and watch online where you are in the process.
- Once they are scanned you review which ones you want and you can order additional services like photo retouching or additional DVDs.
- Then you checkout, pay the difference, and your media and DVDs with digitized photos is sent to you.
No comments:
Post a Comment