Color slide scanning, by hand
We scan 35mm, 110, 126, 127, and 120 slides; and medium and large format transparencies.
Your slides are in jeopardy. Minute by minute, even in the dark, they are changing color, scratching, and possibly developing fungal stains. Slide scanning with ScanCafe can save them:
- Scanned and repaired by hand, one-by-one
- High 3000 dpi resolution allows enlargements.
- Safe, guaranteed. Door-to-door tracking, too.
- Amazing value: $0.29 per 35mm slide, and $0.22/scan Value Kit available
- 8-day turnaround available.
Handcrafted quality
Chances are, your old slides are some of the most precious things you have. So when you send them off to a service like ours, you expect them to be treated carefully. At ScanCafe, we understand that. We never run them through some automated correction process, where a piece of software guesses its way through a batch of your most important memories. Yet with most services, that happens all the time.
We think there's a better way. We think that every single slide you send us should be examined by a highly trained technician with a good eye and a terrific set of hands. That's why we've designed our service from the ground up around the idea of a technician individually processing and correcting your slides as needed. This way, you don't have to make a hard choice between being able to afford to preserve all your memories, and being able to preserve them well. At ScanCafe, you can do both.
Photo: LTC Kane.
Individual image adjustments
Essentially every slide we receive requires some correction for the effects of time, since color slides inevitably shift color and scratch over time (unless you've stored them in archival-quality, subzero conditions). For every slide we receive, we will manually perform:
- Re-orientation
- Cropping
- Scratch and dust removal
- Color correction
- Red-eye removal
- Other minor damage
In short, for our standard level of slide scanning service, a technician will spend approximately four minutes per slide addressing all of the problems above, and then some. In our experience scanning millions of slides, this produces amazing quality almost all of the time, for just pennies per image. (Some slides may be so damaged they require our restoration service, but that's relatively rare).
How it works
| » Do you scan medium format slides?
Yes. We scan 120/220 medium format slides. We also scan 35mm, 110, 126, 127 slides.
» What is resolution or dpi and which dpi should I choose?
DPI means dots per inch, and you should always select the highest dpi that works for that particular media for slide scanning. Specific to slides, our experience has shown that the maximum dpi you should use is 3000dpi. If you go higher than 3000 dpi, the resolution becomes too fine tuned and you start to see the microscopic permutations on the slide.
» My slides are very old. Can you remove mold from my old slides?
If you have mold build up or crusted dust that is difficult to get off with a jet of air, we will use a special film cleaner such as "Rexton Anti-Static Film Cleaner for Black & White and Color Film". A lint free cloth will then be used and we will wipe gently along the length of the slide. We will not apply the cleaner in a swirling motion because this will scratch the surface. In certain cases, the mold build up will be so extreme that we will need to do advanced photo restoration.
| » How do you know the correct orientation for scanning slides?
Most slides will bear a brand logo or the phrase "this side facing the screen." It is this side of the film that the scanner detector should read. The actual insertion procedure will vary from scanner to scanner.
» Many of my slides are extremely faded, how are you able to restore the colors?
ScanCafe's service is unique because we provide free, manual color correction and restoration for each slide although a small number of slides require more advanced restoration work. It works the same way as our photo restoration, but the image comes from the slide.
Color restoration can be done during the scanning process using the scanner hardware or after the scanning process using an image editing software like Adobe Photoshop. At ScanCafe, we do both. We use Kodak Digital ICE which is built into our Nikon scanners, and we use Photoshop photo editing software after the image is scanned.
» I scanned my own slides, but I noticed the image is getting cropped and I don't see the entire slide image? How does ScanCafe do it?
Most slides are of the standard size and the film is rectangular. Some slides are square in shape (super slides) and some are rectangular in the vertical direction. The Nikon 5000ED does not scan the entire area of these non-standard sized slides. To fix this, ScanCafe uses a Nikon 9000ED slide scanner on irregular sized slides.
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The Industry Leader
#1We've done more than twice the scans of anybody in the business. Put our experience to work for you!
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Great Prices
Even though our quality is the best in the industry, our prices are far below comparable services.
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Pay for What You Keep
With ScanCafe, you get to review your scans before you settle your bill. You can delete up to 50% of your scans if you don't want them--no questions asked!
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Guaranteed. For Real.
The only real guarantee in the business. If something happens to your originals while we have them, we’ll pay you up to $1,000.
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Experts Agree
“The attention to detail was impressive. And so were the scans... pro-caliber work…”
“Best quality and cheapest…The best scanning service.”
“Bottom line? Good quality and, at $0.24 per slide and $0.27 per print, the price is hard to beat.” -
Our Customers
When I got my DVD back with the photos, I could not believe the quality of the scans! It was like I was transported back in time....It was truly an emotional experience reliving those photos on my computer with such startling clarity and quality.
- Matthew C., Columbus, GA (Dec 2007)
The images I received were amazing quality - just like the original pictures...I loved that ScanCafe had great prices and that I could choose which images to purchase after they had scanned them all - what a deal!
- Connie S.,Toccoa, GA (August 2008)
I am a full time professional photographer for 17 years. I recently sent an equal amount of slides to both ScanCafe, and a major US competitor. The scans came back from Scan Cafe, and every single one of them was 100% perfect. 20% of the scans from the competitor were completely unusable, and 50% of them required adjusting in Photoshop. And to make it even better, Scan Cafe was one third the price of the competitor...
- Brian S., Baltimore, MD (July 2007)