Scanning Service

digitally save your family photo treasures

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Looking for something to do while you are sheltered in place? Do you have boxes of old photos that you’ve been hoping to organize, digitize and share with family and friends? Now’s your chance! Papas Photography is offering a premium photo scanning service to help preserve and share some of your most irreplaceable possessions.


Here’s some detail about our scanning service features, pricing, options, process & FAQs:


Premium Service Care

You and your family’s photographs are our highest priority! We will handle and work on your photographs as if they were our own! Throughout the process we will update you with status reports, so you know how much work has been completed and when your digital images will be available for viewing.


Image History Retained

Did Grandma write something on the back of the picture? We’ll scan that too!! Part of keeping your family history in photographs includes retaining the subject’s name, location, date or other information written on the back of the photo or album.

  • We automatically include backside scanning of images with writing or stories.
  • Pictures with names, dates or locations noted on the back will have that data manually included in the digital file name, so that the information is retained without having to create more scans and files.




Love what you do

Individual Image Fixes

Over time pictures will start to fade and lose their color. Our service will examine every individual picture and adjust color & contrast to bring back the image quality close to its original print appearance. For antique pictures, depending on your artistic style, you may want to keep the faded vintage look or have the images completely restored. Before we do any photo restoration, we will provide you with BEFORE & AFTER examples of how the image appearance could change and an estimate of time required to restore treasured pictures.

Here are some Before & After examples of our:

  • Basic Edit – INCLUDED with base service (adjusting color & contrast)
  • Advanced Edit – Optional service to remove significant dust & scratches (~5min per image),
  • Photo Restoration – Optional service to fully restore significant photo damage. Photo Restoration will be quoted on a per image basis, after we can assess the damage and estimated work required to restore the image.


Online Gallery for Organizing, Sharing & Downloading

Once your images are ready for viewing, you will be given access to your own (mobile friendly) online gallery, secured by email registration, password and PIN# for image downloading. From here, you will be able to view, share & download all of your pictures for up to 3 months. Gallery features include:

  • View images in grid, full screen or slideshow mode.
  • Organize images into “collections”
  • Select your “Favorites”
  • Create your own “collections” of images
  • Post individual pictures directly to FacebookTwitter or Pinterest
  • Share images, collections or the whole gallery with family and friends via email, Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest.
  • Download images in Full Resolution (~8Mb/picture) or Social Media image sizes (~2Mb/picture).
  • “Unlimited” downloads of the gallery, collections or individual images to your computerDropbox or Google Photos. (Your whole family can download a copy!)

What’s it going to cost me?

Be careful of our competitors fine print! Don’t be confused by all the costly service options and misleading value pricing. At Papas Photography, our purpose is to help you digitize, preserve and share your most precious photographic treasures, so we provide a FULL-SERVICE model with no complicated additional charges.

Our scanning service pricing model is very simple, we charge $35/hourperiod! [Minimum order of 3hrs]. You will receive a project cost estimate before you even give us the pictures! Once we receive your images, we’ll provide updated time estimates and continuous progress reports so that you are NEVER SURPRISED by the cost of preserving your family’s photographic history.

Check out the following price comparison using ~1500 photos. You won’t find another scanning service that provides as much personal care and level of services as Papas Photography!


Recent Project Example & Cost:

Most recently we had a client whose mother passed away. Traveling out of state, our client and his siblings did not have time to review and distribute all of the family pictures their mother had collected over the years, so our client volunteered to take the pictures home and digitize them for the family.

Realizing the amount of effort and lack of time he had to accomplish this task, he approached Papas Photography for help. We received a box full of unorganized pictures, albums and frames; of all sizes, shapes, age and styles. NO PROBLEM! In less than a two-weeks, we organized, scanned, and digitally enhanced ~1500 pictures that his family is now able view, share and download!  Every one of his siblings can now have their own copy of the family legacy in pictures!  Final project cost: $0.39/scan!

[Note: Your final per/scan cost will vary depending on project size. We will provide you with some tips and tricks on how to organize and potentially reduce the time required to scan your images. This particular example took advantage of our FULL SERVICE model and included MANY backside scans, album removal, large picture merges and photo restoration. Your cost per scan could be much lower!]




faq's

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What's included with the basic service?

A. INCLUDED: By default, I scan all images at 600dpi JPEG format (sRGB).
INCLUDED: Any size picture up to 11×14 in size (I take multiple scans of larger pictures and stitch them back together in Photoshop)
INCLUDED: Backside scanning to save writing (when applicable)
INCLUDED: Unique file naming & numbering by album, event, date, location, or subject (all depends on what info you can provide about the pictures)
INCLUDED: Removal of images from albums.
INCLUDED: Individual picture color & contrast correction and some repair of “minor” scratches.
INCLUDED: Online gallery for viewing, sharing and downloading your pictures. (Mobile friendly and available for 3 months.)
INCLUDED: Unlimited downloads of Full Resolution or Social Media size digital images.
INCLUDED: Concierge style service and support. I'm here to help meet your scanning and photography needs!

what is the process? How does this work?

A. Step 1: Click on the REQUEST QUOTE! I will contact you to discuss your scanning project in more detail, provide an "initial cost estimate" and reserve a timeframe for starting your project.

Step 2: Deposit & Delivery. I require a 50% deposit on the “initial cost estimate” of the project before we start scanning. Once I receive delivery of your pictures, I will be able to review the quality and quantity and provide any potential updates to our estimates. Your deposit is fully refundable up until when I start scanning. You are still free to stop the service at any time, but you will be charged our per hour fee for any work done up until that point (in 30min increments). We will discuss drop-off/delivery timing and COVID considerations during our initial call.

Step 3: Progress Updates. Once I have received your pictures, I will start the work and provide you with continuous project updates on our progress. It is imperative to us that there are NO SURPRISES, so at a minimum, you will receive progress updates for:
• Scanning (Start of Scanning | 50% Complete Status | Scanning Complete).
• Image Processing (Start of Image Processing | Image Processing Complete).
• Online Gallery (Available, 30-day Reminder, 1-day Reminder, Gallery Closed)

Step 4: Online Gallery Available! Once I have finished the project and received your final payment, I will upload all of your images to the gallery and send you a notification with password and download PIN information, along with instructions on how to use various features of the gallery.

I will be in constant contact throughout the process and available for any further questions or issues. Again, my purpose is to provide you with a premium service to help you preserve your family’s precious memories. The only surprise I want you to encounter is how beautiful your pictures are and how easy it is to view, download and share your photographic treasures!

additional scanning options?

A. PHOTO RESTORATION. I will provide time estimates before I start repairing any pictures that may require more than 3min/image to improve. "Advanced" edits (e.g., removal of significant dust and scratches) could take up to ~5min/photo. Full scale photo restoration could take up to an hour or more per picture.

LARGER SCAN RESOLUTION. We can scan at 1200dpi or higher if requested, as well as scan to TIFF files. However, be aware that this will increase the overall time to scan, process and upload your larger files.

ALBUM PHOTO REPLACEMENT. By default, we will remove images from albums provided and place them (in order) in an envelope labeled with the album description. If requested, we can place the pictures back into the album. However, this will add to the overall time to complete your project. [Note: pictures removed from glue/sticky style album pages can NOT be replaced.]

Do you scan negatives & slides?

A. YES! And boy do they come out looking beautiful! Continuing with our white glove service we carefully remove dust with a hand air-blower before scanning in the slides into 2400 DPI TIFF files (this ensures the largest spectrum of colors and details are captured). The scanning software further removes dust and scratches. Once scanned, our technician adjusts each individual image to remove color casts and bring back the slide colors to their most accurate original color possible. The files are then saved and made available to you as large JPEGS, for easy sharing and printing. [TIFF files also available via request.]

Please note that this process does take longer than a normal picture scan, so once we know approximately how many slides you would like scanned, we will provide an estimated cost for the service.

Do you scan documents?

A. Absolutely! Old family documents like passports, birth certificates, marriage certificates, old letters, etc. - I am happy to scan documents to help you retain your family history!

I am not, however, in the business of scanning reams of old papers like tax returns, housing documents, etc. Let us know what your needs are and we'll see what we can do!

tips & tricks for lowering your project costs

A. I continuously keep you informed of your project's progress and estimated cost so there are no NO SURPRISES, and my Full Service model is usually less expensive than the cheapest of online scanning services. However, if you are looking for opportunities to reduce your project cost, here are some tips and tricks to help lower overall scanning time.

REMOVE PICTURES FROM ALBUMS. If you give us your pictures in an album, by default we will remove the images, scan them in the order they appeared in the album, and then place them in a marked envelope. If requested, we can also put them back in the album for you.
• Tip: To reduce the time we work on your project, you can remove the images from the albums before sending them to us.
• Trick: Place the pictures in a marked envelope or put a rubber band around them with an index card of the album name. We will scan in the pictures in the order received and put them in a “collection” in your online gallery, so you will still be able to view/download the pictures by album.

KEEP PICTURES IN THEIR PRINT ENVELOPES. Many people still have their film pictures in the Kodak (or other) envelopes they got from the printers. Great way to keep them organized!
• Trick: Write down any info about the pictures on the envelope (e.g., “Germany Trip 1997”) and we will include that info on each digital file created.
• Tip: Even if you do not provide information, we will still help you keep the pictures organized, by using file names like “Kodak Envelope A (B, C…)”, so that you have some reference on where the pictures came from.

ORGANIZE IMAGES BY SIZE. Just have a ton of loose images in a shoebox? No problem! One way to help reduce our scanning time is to organize them by size.
• Trick: Create a pile of all the wallet sizes together, the 4x6’s, 5x7’s, etc. Organizing by size helps me batch some of the scans, thus reducing the time to manually organize and scan the images.