Packing tips for scanning orders

General packing tips

• Use a box, not an envelope.
  We have found through long experience that the single best thing you can do to protect your originals (beside choosing a trustworthy scanning service, like ScanCafe) is to ship them in a sturdy box. By "sturdy", we mean the kind of box that books are usually shipped in, as from Amazon.com, or that you might buy at a UPS Store. Occasionally, customers have sent us their originals in department-store garment boxes. Those should be avoided, as should padded envelopes, which are just as flimsy.

• Think twice about whether to organize your order.
  You may feel it essential to carefully decide which images to scan and which to leave aside. That can add a lot of time to your project, and get in the way of getting your memories preserved. Remember, with ScanCafe you can send us everything, and then pay only for the slides you want to keep (subject to a 50% minimum), once you've had a chance to review them online. You also may find it much faster to organize the images once they are on your computer.

• You don't have to make a precise count of your originals.
  We do ask you to estimate the size of your order, when you place it, but that is mainly to help us manage our work queue efficiently. Every single order at ScanCafe is opened, under video surveillance, and counted (and weighed) precisely. That said, we realize that some customers will want to make a precise count, and that's fine, too, if you have the time and the inclination.

• 

  Print three copies of your shipping label.
  It took us a year of planning before we scanned our first order, and one of the things that we spent the most time on was integrating UPS into our logistics. So when you place your order, we'll ask you to print out three copies of a pre-addressed, bar-coded UPS shipping label. One copy goes on the outside of the box, one copy goes inside the box (in case your label on the outside gets smudged), and one copy is for your records.

• Choose how you want to handle photo albums & carousels.
  We are happy to remove your originals from slide carousels and photo albums, scan them, and place them back, in the exact order. However, we do charge a small additional fee for that.

• Make sure your box is filled, even if you need to pad it.
  If you don't have bubble wrap or foam "peanuts" handy, some old newspapers are better than nothing. The main idea is that you don't want your originals to slide around in your box.

If you want to group and label your originals

If you group and label your originals inside your box, we will scan your order accordingly, and organize your DVD along those same lines. (You could also do this organization after your receive your DVD, the choice is yours.) For example, you could label one set of originals as "16th birthday" and another set of negatives as "Baby Pictures". Be sure to write legibly--printed all capitals is a good idea.

You can order resealable plastic bags online, as well as find them at the grocery store.

• Group negatives with envelopes and ziploc bags.
  Simply place the negatives/envelopes in Ziploc bags - the bags protect the film from moisture in transit. If your negatives are sitting in a portfolio binder, just send the entire binder. Our team will take the negatives out of the plastic sleeves and scan the negatives. Once scanned, we will then put the negatives back in the sleeves in the order they were received.

• Group slides using rubber bands, slide boxes, or aluminum-foil boxes.
  Old aluminum foil or Saran Wrap boxes make excellent containers for slides. Also, you can stack the slides and keep them together with two sets of rubber bands. And these, too, should be wrapped in a ziploc bag, to seal out moisture.

• Group paper photos and use as needed, a piece of cardboard.
  Each group should go into a resealable plastic bag (some freezer bags even allow writing on them, which is handy for labeling). If you're sending 8" x 10" photos, it's probably a good idea to wrap them or back them with something stiff, like a piece of extra cardboard, to prevent bending that might occur en route.

• About Us
• Contact Us
• Blog
• Legal
• FAQ
• Sitemap
• Photo Restoration

Copyright © 2006-10 ScanCafe Inc. All Rights Reserved.