Cheap high resolution digital photos from film

November 16, 2005 8:25 AM

What is a good and inexpensive option for getting high-resolution digital images from color print film?

I'm interested in a place to which I could mail film, have them process it, and receive high-resolution digital images and preferably prints as well. I would pay no more than about $15 per roll.
A couple of places have "high-resolution" downloads at 1612x1024 but I'm hoping for at least twice the number of pixels. At this point I'm wondering if I should just buy a decent scanner and scan the prints.

posted by exogenous to media & arts (5 comments total)

Sometimes buying the scanner outright does work out to be cheaper if you're doing a significant amount of frames, but there's a big cost in time. I like scanning my own stuff but after all is said and done I spend so much time cleaning up and tweaking that I now only scan frames that are really special. (I've since gotten a digital SLR, so now I only have to scan if I've shot film). If you buy a scanner, get one with ICE to clean up dust, scratches, and other nasties from the film-- it'll save you time and sanity.

Bringing the film to a place that'll do the scans for you will probably get you a much less dusty scan, but you may still have to clean them up if you are a perfectionist. I like to bring my undeveloped rolls to costco and have them develop it on their noritsu machine which will simultanously spit out a CD with the prints. The scans aren't spectacular, but they are good enough to work with if I'm not being picky. If I really want to get a great scan of some film, I'd go to a place that does drum scanning, but that can cost and arm and a fraction of a leg.

I haven't used them, but El-Co Color is a place I've heard about. $18/roll plus CD fee for 4096 x 6144 scans. I'd check with Adorama and B&H to see if they offer the service too.
posted by GreenTentacle at 9:29 AM on November 16, 2005 [1 favorite]

I haven't been in the market for a few years, so maybe this has changed.

But when I was looking, what you ask did not exist. Sub $15 was cheap, crap scans. Good scans were more expensive than that (I seem to remember $20-$30 a roll). Hi-res could not be had except at an even higher price point. That may have changed, though, as higher-res is now easier to deal with all around.

For one important occasion I found a local shop that sounded good, payed something like a $100 for a couple of rolls of film, and the results were crap.

I never found a solution that I could afford. The very best cost could be had by buying your own film scanner, at least if you plan on doing this a lot. (The equipment for good scans is not cheap, to be sure, but it also a major time sink, as GreenTentacle points out, which I suspect is part of the price, and one of the reasons I suspect things haven't change all that much). If you were to get a good scanner, get a nice one. I went with an early, cheap one. It really was just a waste of time and money.
posted by teece at 10:17 AM on November 16, 2005

I have a cheap local processor give me back a CD with scans of about 5 rolls per (I don't need prints). Unfortunately, they can only go up to 2400 pixels on the widest side, which is not enough for me, but at $6 or so a roll it's cheap as heck.

The scan size from El-Co is excellent, just what I'd like, but a little too expensive. Anyone know any other options?
posted by luriete at 10:18 AM on November 16, 2005

It seems like the average size with most places is around 4000 pixels, This place http://www.cmlab.com/
seems to be one of the cheaper services, but in my mind unless your scanning hundreds of photos, I would rather just get a really good scanner and do it myself.

Also, check out this list of places that offer scanning services:
http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Photography/Services/Digital/Photo_Scanning/
posted by emjaydee at 12:22 PM on November 16, 2005

Thanks everyone. I found a scanner with ICE for less than $100 that I plan to buy.
posted by exogenous at 9:24 AM on November 30, 2005