Where to get old photos scanned?

jamin100

jamin100

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I have about 3 weeks to get around 60 old photos scanned to digital (jpg) so that I can get them sent off and printed in a book format.
Does anyone know of anywhere in or around Birmingham / Dudley that will be able to do this?

The only thing ive found so far is snappy snaps?
 
Doesn't Max Spielmann in Dudley High Street do scans, or could you just buy yourself a scanner online and do them yourself ?
 
jamin100 said:
I have about 3 weeks to get around 60 old photos scanned to digital (jpg) so that I can get them sent off and printed in a book format.
Does anyone know of anywhere in or around Birmingham / Dudley that will be able to do this?
Click to expand...

I'm assuming you are talking prints rather than negatives or transparencies? And probably less than A4 size? If so, you can get a surprisingly good result scanning with your average all-in-one pinter/scanner (or indeed taking a shot with your digital camera!). If you have negs or slides it's a little more complicated. Photo Express in Hull will scan a 36-shot 35mm film for a fiver, nice scans at 2000 ppi. AG-Photolab in Birmingham will do 35mm or 120 film for around twice that. Individual negs etc work out more expensive per unit. There are other options as well. Snappy and Max will normally give 1200 ppi scans from negs, often rather over-sharpened, but are cheap and convenient.
 
Yeh sorry I should have specified they are actual prints that I want scanned and most of them are 6x4 or smaller

Are the small £30-£40 photo scanners that scan straight to SD cards on Amazon any good?

I'm not going to be blowing these up huge but will be creating an simple photo book so need them to be at least printable
 
jamin100 said:
Yeh sorry I should have specified they are actual prints that I want scanned and most of them are 6x4 or smaller

Are the small £30-£40 photo scanners that scan straight to SD cards on Amazon any good?

I'm not going to be blowing these up huge but will be creating an simple photo book so need them to be at least printable
Click to expand...

The cheap photo scanners that scan straight to SD cards are absolutely dire, IMHO. I bought a more expensive version, and was very glad of Amazon's return policy as I began to understand how awful the results were (not to mention the horrendous light leak that rapidly developed). But they scan negatives or slides, so not relevant to your needs anyway, it appears.

Have you tried the all-in-one printer/scanner solution? With prints it's comparatively easy; the biggest hassle is probably getting the prints on straight. You could probably scan at 600 ppi, or at most 1200 ppi (for a 4 times enlargement**). My cheap all-in-one Canon will scan at 2400 ppi.

** Remembering of course that you're only enlarging what's on the print, not what was lost between the negative and the print!
 
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