Read This Before You Choose A Scanning Company To Convert Your Film To DVD

5 Mistakes To Avoid When Choosing A Scanning Company -- And Recommendations To Make Sure You Get Quality Slide, Film, Photo Scans

Learn how the scanning industry works so that you can make a better decision when choosing a company to scan your family’s only copy of slides, negative film, or photos.

Mistake #1: Are Your Dad’s Slides A Commodity, Or Are They Memories?

The biggest mistake is choosing a scanning service that works like an assembly line. What I mean is, their focus is to scan as many slides, film, and photos as fast as they can. Time is money, and if they can just squeeze a few more scans per hour, then that means more profits.

Listen, I have no issues with efficiency. But in my 6 years experience in scanning, I know that you can’t scan 50 negatives in an hour, and get digital images that are worth keeping. What I make up in speed, I lose in quality.

Time is money with these guys. And here’s some ways they cut corners:

(a) Reduce the resolution / DPI so the scans go faster.

(b) Don’t clean the slides, negative and photos before you load them in the scanner.

(c) Use scan enhancements like Digital ICE that “promise” quality results, but are just short-cuts.

(d) Not editing your final scans in photo editing software like Photo shop.

There’s a lot of tricks companies will use to speed through your scans. But what you gain in speed, you lose in quality.

Mistake #2: Choosing A Scanning Service Based On Price

I just talked about how some scan companies rather focus on speed than quality. And the lower their price, the better chance that they are cutting a lot of corners. Be careful with the ones that offer low prices-- I bet they are setup to zip through your scans, rather than provide you with quality scans that aren’t useless.

And anyway, if you’re that concerned on price, why not do it yourself?! I know, maybe you’ve tried and that’s why you’re looking for somebody else to do it. But if you need some tips on how to convert film into digital, check out HowToScan.ca.

If you pick the cheap, low-price scanning providers, you’ll end up with useless scans. Better to pay the extra coin, or do it yourself.

Mistake #3: Picking Some Guy With A Scanner

Scanning is pretty close to photography. Say you hire a professional photographer for your wedding. She can produce compositions, moods, colours in one single picture. Or you can hire a buddy, with a camera. Anybody can shoot photography. And a lot of amateurs are pretty good. But when you compare a professional with your buddies photos, you can tell right away who’s are better.

It’s the same with scanning-- anybody can buy a scanner, put up a website, and offer scanning services. Just like anybody can can buy an expensive camera and take pictures. But it doesn’t guarantee quality.

Why would you want quality scans? Well, what’s the point of digitally converting your film, slides, and photos if they turn out worse than your originals?

Mistake #4: Falling For “Digital ICE” And The Promise Of Beautiful Scans

I use a Nikon 9000 film scanner. When I bought it cost me $6000. It can scan up to 4000 DPI. And guess what? so can a $200 scanner. Why was it so expensive? I’ve learned that I mostly paid for what they call Digital ICE.

What’s Digital ICE? It’s basically scanning software that looks at your scans and removes dust and scratches, fixes faded colours, and improves the exposure. That’s what the marketing claims, anyway.

Digital ICE is good if you have NO idea how to improve a digital image. You press a few buttons, and the machine does the rest. But after years of using Digital ICE, I’ve found myself going back to Photo shop, and fixing the scans by “hand”. Unfortunately, there is no short-cut to quality scans. I wish I can press the scan enhance button, and get amazing scans. But there is no substitute for the human eye-- and I will always edit scans using Photo shop, and never touch Digital Ice.

So, look out for scanning companies that market “Digital ICE”. It’s just another way to zip through your scans.

Mistake #5: Paying For The Highest DPI / Resolution

Most people have no idea what a good DPI is for a digital image. Do you even know what DPI’s are?

Here’s the thing-- you don’t need to get the highest DPI scans to get true HD quality digital images. For example, if I scan my 4” x 6” photo at 300 DPI, I can put them on my HDTV and it will display it at true HD. How? Not to get too technical, but a 4” x 6” scan has a pixel resolution of 1200 x 1800. And your HDTV has a pixel resolution of 1080 x 1920. You see, your digital image will fit perfectly on your HDTV screen. For slides and negative film, I scan them at 1500 DPI, to give me a digital image that is around 1200 x 1950. You don’t need 4000 DPI for HD.

So if you’re just using your scans for nothing more than HDTV, email, slide shows, then don’t go for the biggest resolution they offer.

At the same time, if truly want to future-proof your family slides, negatives, or photos, I’d suggest 3000 DPI or 4000 DPI for slides and photos; and 600 DPI for photos. Technology will always get better, and maybe your 300 DPI scans will look bad on a 2160p HDTV.

Recommendations On Finding A Professional Scanning Company

Here’s 3 tips to find qualified scanning services, for the best price.

Recommendation #1: Are They In It For Speed Or Quality - Ask These Questions To Find Out

Do you want some guy zipping through your only copy of your Dad’s slides? Probably not. To weed out the bad ones, here’s what to ask:

(a) How do you clean the slides, negatives, photos?

Professional scanning companies know that most of the dust and debris can be removed BEFORE the scan. They will take the time to thoroughly clean the original using lint free cloth or compress air.

(b) How Do You Improve My Scans

If they only use Digital ICE to improve your scans, watch out. Professional scanning companies won’t use the scanner to improve your scans. They will actually use a photo editing program to do this job, such as Photo shop.

Again, you’re looking for the companies that take their time-- they’re not charging you by the hour, but by the quality of scans they can offer you.

Recommendation #2: Does The Scanning Service Offer Free Sample Scans For Your Approval

A HUGE red-flag is if you feel the company is hiding something. Are they more than happy to show you their work? And I’m not talking about other customer scans-- they can just show you the good ones. But, actually show you YOUR scans.

A professional scanning service will scan a batch for you to approve. So before they start scanning ALL of your scans, they will make sure you are completely satisfied by providing you a few samples of your scans.

Even if they don’t offer this, why not send 25 slides to scan for your own test run. If you like the scans, send the rest of your collection. If not, at least you lost $25 and not $250 or more.

Recommendation #3: What Is Their Guarantee

It’s easy to say, “100% money back guarantee”. Everybody does. But, does the scanning service ask for money now? or after the scans are complete?

In this industry, just like photography or web design, the company or person doesn’t get paid unless work is done. Sometimes there’s a down payment, but most of the case they get paid after the work is done.

It’s the same with scanning. It’s a “creative” profession. They are offering “professional creative services” not tire changes.

So if they are asking for money up front, take it as a red-flag. The real professionals, the one that know what they are doing, the ones that are confident in their work will charge you AFTER you get your scans. If there’s any problems with the scans, they’ll be happy to re-scan or re-edit the bad ones, or give you your money back.

Check out their return policy. Get it in writing. Make sure you get a quote, and make sure their guarantee is on the quote.

Still Not Informed?

This small peak into how the scanning industry works was to educate you so that you can make a better decision when picking a scanning company.

I hope I met my goal, but if you like to learn more, please visit:

ScanCanada.ca: Professional Slide, Negative Film, Photo Scanning Services Toronto

Thanks!
Konrad M.