Digitizing Your Old Slides and Photos to Preserve Memories

If you have lots of old photographs, slides and negatives, and no idea what to do with them, you’re just like any number of other people in Toronto. 

As photos move towards entirely digital formats, older photography and film mediums become tricker to manage and maintain. If you’re anything like many people in Toronto and across Canada, you have boxes upon boxes of your own personal photographs and photos that have been handed down to you, representing memories collected over the years. It just feels wrong to have them sit there, forgotten and growing older by the day. Luckily, there are plenty of options for the everyday person to preserve these precious photographic memories. 

Many people have mounted slides and old negatives but no longer have the means to view them. The easiest method for archiving and accessing film of all varieties is simply to have them scanned. If you’re the DIY type, scanning can become a rewarding activity at home, although it can take a lot of time. You can also choose to have photo and slide scanning done by a professional, which can have its advantages. Either way, the joy of seeing old memories come back to life cannot be understated. 

DIY Photo and Slide Scanning at Home

While ultimately extremely rewarding, undertaking a home film and/or slide scanning project has many potential pitfalls. 

Unfortunately, most people do not have the equipment necessary to capture a good image from mounted slides or standard negatives. Due to their small size, a fairly powerful scanner is needed to achieve a sharp and high-quality image. While sometimes acceptable for scanning larger images, the average home flatbed scanner will fall short for this purpose. Another possible issue is the unfortunate fact of dust and oil. Like anything, slides and film collect dust and fingerprints. While not that noticeable on larger objects, each little detail gets magnified when you scan film or slides. For this reason, access to air blowers, cotton gloves, or small brushes is needed in order to guarantee that your scans are clean. At the same time, it is important be careful not to overdo it as film, slides, and negatives can be very delicate, growing brittle with age. If you’re not sure how to handle film, negatives, and slides, it might be in your best interest to do some research first as you don’t want to accidentally cause damage to these precious, irreplaceable memory keepers. If you have any questions about digitizing slides or photos, you can always ask the staff at Annex Photo for photo and slide scanning advice. 

For the more tech savvy and DIY oriented among us, current DSLR and mirrorless cameras can be set up to act as a home scanner for negatives and slide scanning. While certainly more time and effort than most people are willing to spend on a project of this kind, often a very good image can be accomplished with existing equipment. This method, while accessible to many, requires a substantial amount of know how. Getting an even exposure, clear shot, and enough light are all things that take practice and time. If you’re on the fence, this is probably not the method for you. Alternatively, there are many at home slide and film scanners available on the market, but they can end up being expensive as they are specialized equipment. If you foresee this becoming a hobby, or a long-term project it may be worth investing up front. Not only may it end up being cheaper in the long run, but you also retain control over every aspect of your image. If you are someone who wants things done your way, this is certainly an advantage over going to a professional.

Professional Slide Scanning and Photo Scanning 

If scanning your prints or slides isn’t for you, outsourcing slide scanning may be the right choice for you. Many businesses offer film scanning and slide scanning services. An advantage of using one of these professional services is that you can expect a high-quality image relatively quickly and painlessly. At the end of the day, any dedicated, professional slide or film scanner will digitize images at a significantly higher quality than the home scanner. 

By utilizing professional film or slide scanning services you don’t have to worry about any of the problems that might be faced by doing it yourself. Forget dust, fingerprints, time, equipment, and so on because someone else is dealing with it. Additionally, if you’re in a rush, these services can help. For most people, quickly scanning slides at home is not realistic. While it may cost more, fast photo and slide scanning is a service many image scanning businesses will offer, with turnaround times that can be as short as a few hours. While film-related emergencies probably aren’t cropping as much as they used to, it’s good to know that there is help available.

Generally, photo, negative, and slide scanning pricing changes depending on volume. So, if you anticipate a significant amount of upcoming scanning in your future, I would highly recommend gathering everything and dropping off as many as you can at one time instead of in smaller bundles to take advantage of bulk photo scanning price rates. With that in mind, the price can easily add up as you find more and more slides to scan. Although it might not seem too expensive at first, when you’re scanning hundreds at a time the costs begin to add up. On the other hand, getting set up for home scanning could also add up, especially if you lack a scanner or photo management/editing software. 

Here at Annex Photo, we have the capability  to do rapid photo and slide scanning, but also offer a slower but cheaper option for your printed images: we call it Shoebox Scanning since people generally have a bunch of photos stored in shoeboxes in the back of a closet. If you have hundreds of photos that you want scanned, this is probably the way to go. With the shoebox scanning method, the price will be cheaper as photos run through a bulk scanner but might take longer due to the volume and price. Like everything else, it’s a bit of a balancing act. Do you want to prioritize speed, price, or quality? 

How to Choose between DIY and Professional Photo and Slide Scanning?

If you are thinking about photo and slide scanning, maybe it’s time to actually figure out how to start. Here are a few questions you should ask yourself first. 

• How long do you want to spend working on this? 
  
• What is your budget? 
• How technologically savvy are you? 
• Would you enjoy learning how to work with a digital image?

Your answers to these questions, paired with the information that you have gleaned from this blog post, should provide you with the insight you need to choose the right approach for you. Perhaps you want to take the slow and steady path, learning how to manage and scan film and slides in your home. Alternatively, maybe you’re going to prioritize your time and pay someone to do photo and slide scanning for you. Both are valid and perfectly good ways of accomplishing the same thing. 

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to the photo and slide scanning experts at Annex Photo – we are always happy to help!

Get Shoebox Scanning Pricing Now!

Get Slide Scanning Pricing Now