Best service to scan and archive old photo albums?

August 10, 2015 8:39 PM

In preparation for my wedding, we've been going through some family photos. We've been able to scan some of them, but others are too large or awkward to fit onto our scanner. Can you recommend a service that will scan and digitize these albums for us, while keeping them intact? More inside.

We've got photo albums going back at least 80 years. Some are in okay condition, others not so much. There are photos that are mounted in books that are too large to fit on our scanner. I'd like to be able to put these albums in a box and have them digitized with the care and respect that they need.

ScanCafe seems to be one of the better services out there, but the reviews I've read are mixed. Actually, all of the services seem to have pretty mixed reviews. I found some previous threads on AskMeFi, and they seem to recommend buying a super high powered scanner and doing it myself. I think this is one of the things I'd like to leave in the hands of professionals - taking photos out of their plastic and frames, etc. Not to mention that the equipment to do photos, slides, and negatives would be somewhat cost prohibitive.

Anyway, can anyone recommend a service? Bonus points if it's somewhere here in NYC. (I don't think B&H does it, for example.)

posted by gchucky to Technology (1 answer total)

I've used ScanCafe for my Dad's photos twice with great results each time. We were sending slides and only a few prints but they took good care of the photos and the scans were great. We did the value pack both times where you send 500 or 1000 prints and it's a slightly lower price.
posted by Jungo at 5:50 AM on August 11, 2015