Final word on the scans

Well, maybe not the final final word...

Back in April, I posted about sending film out to a service to get high quality digital files from our old photography. I sent about 50-60 35mm slides to Scan Cafe on April 23rd. 

Scan Cafe was offering the best price and the highest resolution. Resolution is important. A fairly high end scanner for consumers can scan negatives and slides (chromes) at a decent enough resolution for web use, but that level of resolution isn't good enough for greatly enlarged prints. A scanning service uses very high end machines that produce a resolution similar to current high end digital cameras.

In other words... Right now, we can shoot with our DSLR and a high quality lens and get files of 12, 18, even 24 MB, which can give us enlargements of 24x36" or bigger. (Provided that things like focus, subject motion, camera steadiness are done well.) When we looked at our old photos, we know that they are sharp, well exposed, properly focused. We used to send them off (or do ourselves) for HUGE prints. So we wondered, "Why can't I do that now?" 

Things is, we always have been able to. What changed was pricing and preferred format of the lab. To get a high quality very large enlargement from film stock today is getting pretty pricy. At the same time, we could upload one of our pic files from our DSLR to a myriad of places and get a low cost, very high quality enlargement.

That's why I was looking for a good scanning service. Many scanning services until now could give us the results we wanted, but we would pay a good amount per scan. Because scanning also often requires repair. Repair from warpage, color shift, mold, and lots and lots of dust. The new generation of commercial scanners and their supporting software make this much easier and faster. Thus, prices are lower. Large firms dedicated to scanning only, make it even easier and faster. The files I got back from my slides were anywhere from 10 MB to 22 MB. Of course, they were also sharp because of being created with proper photographic technique.

The only downside to the new situation is timing. From April 23rd, I waited until June 2nd before I could download my scanned files from the FTTP site, my finished disc and original slides didn't come back til June 18th.

Even so, I'm very pleased with the whole experience. The old chromes that I so carefully and artfully crafted all those years ago are now residing on my computer, on a DVD, in a back up drive, even on The Cloud. I can send a file of them to places like Canvas People where I can get the photos enlarged on a stretched canvas up to 24x36" for a reasonable price, sometimes even a sale price.

Final verdict: The wait is long, but the results are worth it. Rush orders are available. Next time, I'll try the rush service and report back to you all about that.