Remember that day you asked your entire family to gather around your newly born child’s birthday cake for a photo? Yes, life is a journey, full of many beautiful events, and sometimes it’s great to sit back and reminisce about the good old days. What could be a better way to do so than going through your family’s old photo album? Your photos are a treasure chest full of timeless memories – right from your wedding day to the graduation ceremony of your kids or grandkids. Photographs allow you to relive every live event exactly as it was. Unfortunately, they don’t always last. As time passes by, their once bright color and quality fade away, and in a way, you are robbed of precious moments. The thought of losing your photos is heartbreaking, but don’t worry. Analog photo digitization has made it possible for you to preserve your photos eternally.
There are three analog photos digitization options:
1. Use a Flatbed Scanner
Using your flatbed scanner to digitize old images is the most cost-effective option. Flatbed scanners allow you to scan not one, but several photos at a time. For photo prints, we recommend a flatbed scanner with a high resolution of 600 DPI, but a 300 DPI scanner can still do the job. For negatives and slides digitization, a higher resolution of about 2400 DPI is recommended.
Prepare Your Photos
Begin by removing dust and fingerprints from your photos using a microfiber cloth or a new makeup brush.
How to Digitize
Scan several images at a time; your scanner can accommodate up to four, 4 x 6 images. Then use a photo editing software to crop off unwanted rounded sides. You can also use your photo editor to change the color and mood of your scanned photos.
2. Slide and Negative Scanner
Another alternative is to purchase a slide and negative scanner. The cheapest ones retail at around $100, but if you want a scanner that will deliver professional results, the costs can add up to hundreds of dollars.
Unlike regular scanners, these support many image formats and they are relatively fast. Once you input your negatives or slides, your slide and negative scanner will automatically read and save them as JPEG files on your SDHC or SD memory card or computer. Some slide and negative scanners allow a direct connection with your TV to create a Slideshow.
However, the quality of your digitized negatives and slides may not be satisfactory. Professional photo editing software, such as PhotoShop, and some serious technical skills are required to bring back the vibrant colors of your images, and to get rid of the yellow tints that grow on your analog photos due to natural aging.
3. Outsource to a Professional Image Digitization Service Company
If you have been around enjoying life for more than a few decades, you probably have several boxes of negatives, 35mm slides, and photos gathering dust in your attic. You have always planned to digitize them, but feeding one photo after another through your scanner is a super boring weekend activity for the following 4 months.
Thankfully, digital image transfer firms such as Glendale Video Solutions offer a less tedious way to convert your old images, slides, and negatives to crisp images that are far more watchable, sharable on social media, and storable in your personal cloud. So, rather than letting your beautiful memories to continue fading away in the shoebox, ship your photographs to our studio, and for less than 59 cents per photo, we will give you back digital images that look as good as if they were shot yesterday. We use high resolution scanners that capture any size or type of photograph.
In principle, outsourcing to a digital image transfer firm sounds easy, but there is a large number of image digitization firms, and although they appear the same on paper, the quality of their work differs significantly. Some are good, some are scammers. To make sure you get optimal value for your money, ship your images to Glendale Video Solutions. We are U.S.-based and we have clients from the entire U.S. Our digital image transfer experts are polite, easy to talk to and friendly. Give us a call today!