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scancafé: scan today, preserve tomorrow.

How it works

Move your mouse over the icons for detail                                                                                More on how to pack originals: photos | slides | negatives

FAQs.

1. What types of images can you scan?

ScanCafe scans all slides, negatives, and photos you commonly find in your home.  We also scan special items like medium format slides, and newspaper clippings.  To date, we have successfully scanned over 8,000,000+ images.

2. What is the Quality of the ScanCafe Scans?

ScanCafe is unique because we only offer the highest quality scans.  As our saying goes, “Do it Once.  Do it Right.  Do it Now.”  There is no point in scanning your photos, slides, and negatives at the low end of quality spectrum because you will be disappointed with the results and will not be able to use them to create photobooks, reprints or enlargments..

We scan negatives and slides at 3000 dpi with top of the line Nikon 5000ED and Nikon 9000ED scanners.  We scan photos at 600 dpi, which is the optimal quality level for photos. See for yourself the consequence of scanning at any lower resolution. In addition, the ScanCafe quality is far superior because our free, post-scan services such as manual color correction and manual color balancing. 

For pros, we can scan at 4000 dpi for negatives and slides and at 1200 for printed photos. Our experience suggests this provides better results only if the media are of high quality and have been stored well.

3. What is "Free Manual Color Correction"?

ScanCafe takes advantage of both technology and human interaction to produce the highest quality scans for every image.  No other service offers this manual image correction service for free. 

ScanCafe provides free manual color correction and free manual color balancing in addition to Kodak Digital ICE™ which removes dust and scratches.  This is critical because every photo image is unique and automated color correction software can only do so much.  Manual interaction corrects the scan for every image.  You can see examples on our free services examples page.

4. Do I have to pay for all of the images scanned?   

No.  When we started the company, we realized it was very time consuming to figure out which images you want to scan and which images you do not want to scan.  Therefore, from day one, we decided to be the only company that allows you to delete up to 50% of the images we scan for you without paying for them. .

5. How can I delete the scanned images I do not want to keep?

When the scanning process is complete, we will send you an email asking you to view your images online.  To delete an image, you simply click on a “delete” button, and the image will be sent to a trash can.  If you decide you actually want the scan after you delete it, you can move it back into your “accept” group prior to checkout.

6. What are your prices?

ScanCafe has some of the lowest prices in the industry, while giving you the highest quality scans.

  • 19c for negatives at 3000 dpi
  • 24c for slides at 3000 dpi
  • 27c for photos at 600 dpi

These prices include our free manual color correction services.  You can view our entire price list to see our full array of services.

7. What is your turn around time?

Phenomenal editorial reviews in Money Magazine, Popular Photography, and other publications, have pushed our  turn around time to about 8 weeks from the time we receive your images at ScanCafe. As we increase capacity over the next few weeks, the turn around time should be reduced substantially. Our goal is to provide the highest quality scans so we will not take short-cuts – we know you will appreciate this.

8. How can I track my order?

We use bar coded door-to-door tracking through UPS.  ScanCafe has an online tool which allows you to see where your package is within our scanning processing.  This tool will also give you an estimate of the scan finish date.

9. What order are the images scanned and can I label my image folders?

First, we scan the images exactly in the order they are given to us.
Yes, if you would like to group particular images within a named folder, you should clearly label those groups of images.  For example, you could label one group of images as “Thanksgiving 2005” and another group as “Italy 1955”.  You can create an unlimited number of folders as long as you clearly label them before you send them to us.

10. How many images has ScanCafe completed to date?

As of September 2007, we have successfully scanned over 4,000,000+ images.   You can view our testimonials which highlight our first class service to go along with the highest quality scans.

11. Who scans the images?

To provide you with the highest quality manually scanning processes, we have a trained technical team with backgrounds in art, graphic design, and computer animation.  Our primary business offices are in suburban San Francisco, CA, and our first-class graphics center is based in Bangalore, India.

12. Do you scan medium format and APS?

We do scan a broad range of media types including medium format. However, we currently do not scan APS film because we have found that the Nikon APS loaders are prone to failure after scanning 35-40 APS rolls. We may offer APS scanning in the Fall of 2008 if we can find better APS scanners in the future. Our price page contains all the media we scan and the corresponding rate.