The Home of the Hybrid Photographer

Alright, I am going to open the new Scanning category on LifeInDigitalFilm with a quick review of the ScanCafe service. An excellent way to get your scanning caught up quick. A while back I was scanning in all of my family’s negative, accumulated over 30 years of casual photography. I all I scanned in about 500 images myself and then decided to try out ScanCafe.

So, I bundled up the remaining 2000 plus negatives I had laying around and got them prepared to send off for scanning. I was prepared to set off on this endeavor.

ScanCafe’s scanning service is quite complete for any negatives or slides you may need to get scans performed upon. Currently ScanCafe offers their 35mm services for 29 cents per frame of negative or slide film scanned as 3000 DPI Jpeg images. They also offer 600 DPI scans of prints if you desire to have prints scanned. These are ScanCafe’s basic services for these medias, you can choose to upgrade resolution of file format for additional cast. I’ll cover that later.

[All images in article are actual scans from 20 year old negatives, done by ScanCafe]

ScanCafe doesn’t stop at offering 35mm scans. APS negatives can be scanned for 49 cents per image as 3000 DPI Jpegs. Medium format images, of all common image formats, are available for 99 cents per image, again as 3000 DPI Jpegs. Even older, smaller formats are available for scanning. 110, 126 and 127 negatives can also be scanned to 3000 DPI Jpegs for 99 cents an image. A bit high for the quality of the formats, but special techniques have to be utilized for this format film. In the past year ScaCafe has also added Black and White 35mm scanning. For 69 cents per frame, they will wet mount your B&W images to reduce scratches, and create 3000 DPI scans as well.

Additional document and printed image scanning is done for varying prices as 600 DPI scans. Just in case you want to scan in your newspaper collection.

The ordering process is easy, you simply log into ScanCafe and fill out an order form for you scan order. They do not require you to physically count every negative or slide you are sending in, just reasonable estimates. Once you have your count frames you are sending in, you simply fill out the scanning estimate in the order form. Your total is automatically updated.

At the time of order you also have the option to add on upgrades to your scanning service. By default, ScanCafe delivers your images on CD or DVD sets, depending on size of order. At this time you can order additional sets of disk or forgo optical media entirely and upgrade to a 320 GB USB hard disk for an additional $99.95. You can also upgrade your image’s resolution and format. For 9 cents per scan you can get images in their Pro resolution, which is a 4000 DPI scan. Another option is Tiff format images, in their uncompressed glory for an addional 19 cents per scan. Scan Cafe even offers a Pro Library service for and additional 29 cents per image, providing you with a Tiff of the raw scan as well as a processed Jpeg. Utilizing their upgrades, you can tailor your scans to exactly what you need.

I ordered my 2000 negative scans as standard 3000 DPI Jpegs delivered on a USB hard disk. I didn’t need to upgrade to the hard disk, as my set would have came on 2 DVDs, but I wanted to see the quality of the hard drive delivered. Once I had upgraded everything I was asked to pay for one half of the estimated final scan cost at time of order. Many other services require full payment, but ScanCafe’s reasoning for charging half will be apparent later on. I got my total, and paid my 50% deposit and my charges for UPS shipping. I packed up my negatives in bundles of 20 strips and stuck them in the bundles into those chaep plastic negative sleeves you get with 1 hour processing. I wasn’t too concerned about damaging the negatives, as they were improperly stored and were dirty and dusty, laden with scratches. If I were to scan them I would have to clean each strip before scanning, to test ScanCafe’s quality I sent them in as is. I packaged them into a box and took the box to the local UPS store to send my negatives off on their international voyage.

Here is a point of concern for many a photographer. ScanCafe, although based in America, maintains their scanning facility in India. Some may find that a risk they are unwilling to take with their irreplaceable media. It didn’t bother me, as I read how they manage their shipments to India. Your box does not leave from your home and go directly to India. UPS delivers your package to ScanCafe in California. From there they bundle your package, along with many other into a single air shipping container. All their orders are sent in a direct shipment by air to India and are delivered directly to their scan facility.

After you package is received in India, their technicians make a precise count of image in your order, update your final cost and then queue them up for scanning. Once your order gets its turn at the scanning workstation, your entire order is process by one technician, by hand. Most other services utilize automatic feeders for their scanners, quickening their scans and requireing little human intervention. ScanCafe has their technicians scan each negative individually on Nikon CoolScan 5000 ED and 9000 ED scanners and retouch utilizing both Digital ICE and hand retouching. A single technician handles your entire order, which maintains consistency especially with color. After your order is complete another technician does a quality review of your images. After the Quality check the scanned images are place online so you can check them out.

Here is where it gets cool. After your scans are online for review you get to select any images you want to discard. You can discard up to half your order, which in turn lowers your final cost. As you scan through the online gallery, some images will have technician notes, such as “bad media” or “good candidate for restoration”. When a scan comes out not so great, but could be saved with substantial effort, they recommend it for their restoration services, which I have not tried out. When an image is not salvageable, it is marked bad media. An obvious first step in your rejection process is to weed out all the bad media images.

Once you have deleted any images you want gone, simply pay you outstanding balance and shipping costs, ScanCafe sends your negatives back stateside and then ships your originals and media with scans to your door via UPS.

When I ordered, I sent off 2000+ 35mm negatives and ordered the external hard disk. At the time of order they estimated a 4-6 week scan time with a week shipping on either side. I was also warned that more than 1000 images can add an additional 2 weeks of scan time. So I sat back and accepted it would take almost three months for me to receive my final scans. After a week their online order tracking showed my package had arrived in India. I sat in the queue for almost a week and was getting my order scanned shortly thereafter. A little over three weeks after I dropped off the order at my local UPS Store, my scans were online and ready for review.

I sped through the review process, devoting a weekend to the process. As these were family snapshots full of memories, I only deleted the bad media images, knocking 70 images off my order and knocking about $20 off my order total. Even though the preview images are smallish, limited to about 500 pixels on the long side, they were plenty large enough to gauge the overall quality of the scans and I was quite impressed. I made my selections and payed my balance. Three days later ScanCsfe’s online tracking showed my package was en route back to the US. Delivered to my door four days after that.

In all my negatives were gone from me for a little over a month, almost a month and a half. Still that outperformed even ScanCafe’s estimates. Once the package arrive I plugged it in and view family photos I hadn’t seen in years. With bright vibrant, colors and sharp high quality scans. The final product was much better than what I was expecting.

Overall, I was very impressed with their cost vs. quality. For very little per scan you can have someone else handle the tedium of large volume scanning. You can easily do as well yourself, contrary to much of what their “Guide” to DIY scanning says, but when you need to get caught up quick, this service cannot be matched.

Scary to many is the shipping overseas of you negative. This is a personal dilemma, as you can save a lot of time and effort by taking this minute risk. ScanCafe is a great service if you need it. If you are caught up on your scanning however, stick to doing it yourself.

More about ScanCafe at their website.

Michael

Oh and I am giving away 3 copies of my Cold Storage Collection Vol 1 to 3 lucky individuals who sign up for the X-Equals+Digest between now and October 1st. If you haven’t done so already, click the X-Equals ad on the right sidebar!