Negative Scanning Services

In theory, you can scan negatives at home if you own, or can rent a quality film scanner. But there's a substantial cost involved here in terms of personal time and this is something to consider when you are weighing the pros and cons of DIY versus using a professional scanning service. After all, spending priced weekend hours scanning many sets of negatives is nobody's idea of fun.

In addition, negatives require special handling because of how delicate they are. Black and white negatives contain grains of silver halide and this causes a buildup of tiny scratches over time. Dust particles also tend to be more entrenched and visible on black and white negatives. And so, apart from scanning time, you will have to factor in time required for editing out these blemishes.

Given ScanCafe's experience with scanning negatives, we can tackle these and other challenges in order to deliver optimally scanned and carefully repaired images to you at the end of the process.

• Decluttering, which makes it easier to organize sort, date, and label photos
• Sharing USB copies with friends and family
• Creating photo books for special occasions
• Uploading digital pictures to online photo sharing websites

If most of your photo collection is comprised of negatives, scanning them is preferred to prints because:

• Scans from negatives are much higher quality than paper photos, since negatives are the original media and some quality is lost in the printing process (and this can vary greatly depending on the lab that printed them)
• Negatives are less expensive to ship (negatives weigh 1/10th of paper photos) and require a smaller box
• Negatives are already numbered in a sequence, so they’re easier to organize when scanning

Yes, we can scan single negatives that have been cut from larger strips.

Unfortunately, no. We have found that our scanning process is operationally tighter and safer if we, as a matter of policy, scan all the images you submit. But this is one big reason we allow you to delete scans when you review your order: to help account for the fact that on a strip of negatives there may be images that you simply don't want--whether that's because of double exposures, duplicate or near-duplicate images, or frankly for any reason at all.

Please only use secure and sturdy boxes to ship your precious images. DON’T use flimsy department store boxes (e.g. Macy's or Nordstrom), Kleenex boxes, thin paper/cardboard boxes, moving boxes, or shoeboxes. In addition, you should never use bubble mailers because the contents will likely be damaged. Always be careful to fully tape up the box on the top and bottom. The UPS store or your local post office has appropriate shipping materials. Here are UPS guidelines for proper packaging:

• Use a rigid box with flaps intact
• Remove any labels, specific material indicators, and other previous shipment markings on the box that aren’t applicable
• Wrap all items separately
• Use adequate cushioning material
• Use strong tape designed for shipping
• Don’t use string or brown paper overwrap
• Use a single address label that has clear, complete delivery and return information
• Place a return address label inside the package