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Shoebox Scanning

We turn your boxes of treasured photos, slides and negatives into archived digital images for easy sharing, re-printing and storage. Simply send your photos, slides, or negatives to Digital Imaging Lab, where our trained photo technicians carefully scan your images with state-of-the-art equipment. These new digital pictures are then placed onto a CD or DVD, and your originals are returned to you.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Shoebox Scanning Services have been temporarily suspended due to damage suffered by our Christchurch Central City location in the February 22nd earthquake.

How the process works

For Photos:

  1. We receive your shoebox of photos.
  2. They are loaded into our scanner in batches.
  3. Our scanner scans the photos and the resulting images are stored on a computer.
  4. A CD or DVD is mastered.
  5. We send you back your photos and new digital media.

We use industry leading Kodak photographic scanning equipment. Photos are scanned at 300 dpi (dots per inch).

For slides and negatives:

  1. Your slides or negatives arrive in our lab.
  2. Our lab staff blow the dust off each slide.
  3. Your slide or negatives are loaded into our scanner and scanned.
  4. Our lab staff correct the images colour levels to ensure you get the best quality image possible.
  5. A DVD or CD is mastered with your images on it.
  6. We send you back your slides/negatives and digital media.

We scan negatives at around 325 dpi (dots per inch). We can save your files as either JPG files (compressed) or TIFF files (uncompressed). The uncompressed TIFF files are much larger than JPG files as they contain more information about the image whereas the JPEG is easier to use for most applications. JPEG is still very high quality, for example almost all digital cameras record images in JPEG . TIFF files are only recommended over JPEG if you want to manipulate your files digitally or create large high resolution prints.

Preparation

Photos

  • Photos must be able to bend through 180 degrees for bulk scanning, i.e. not mounted on a hard card. (Photos that cannot be scanned through our shoebox scanning service can be scanned for additional $3 per photo.)
  • Photos must be presented to us loose (i.e. not in any albums etc) with nothing attached to them.
  • Photos must be stacked smallest to largest and facing upright, if a photo is sent to us upside down it will be scanned upside down. We do not sort your photos at all.
  • All photos must be lying horizontally regardless of orientation. If you have photos you want to be scanned in the correct orientation they must be provided in separate bundles (i.e. a bundle of landscape photos and a separate bundle of portrait photos).
  • For larger quantities of black and white photos these should be stacked separately so we can optimize the scanning. If additional sorting is required by us, it will incur an additional charge that will not exceed $25.
  • We recommend bundling your loose photos in stacks of 150 — 200 with rubber band rather than bags to avoid shifting in transit.

Slides

  • All your slides should be delivered with the emulsion (shiny) side facing one direction.
  • Slides will be scanned in the order provided to us as long as it is clearly noted on this form.
  • All slides will be blown for dust
  • Many people only view their scanned slides on the television. In this case order DVD’s instead of CD’s as they will load on your DVD player for immediate screening on your TV.
  • The “movie” option sets your slides to automatically scroll on your TV & you may pause or fast forward as you require. Titles can be added & should you choose to group your slides into events we can create seperate folders with titles for each event ie “Our Wedding”, “Xmas 1966″ “Mary,s 1st Birthday Party” etc. Use your imagination to make the DVD a real family treasure.

Pricing

Service Price
Up to 1000 photos to CD or DVD $99
Up to 500 Slides to CD or DVD $149
Up to 250 Slides to CD or DVD $99
Up to 100 Slides to CD or DVD $59
Every additional 100 Slides after 500 to CD or DVD $29
500 Negatives (125 strips of 4 photos) $149
Premium Pack (Set of 4×6 index prints in a leather album) $49
Extra copies of the CD or DVD. Archival quality. $19
Movie Slide Show for playing on DVD player $39
Naming Titles and Chapters on Slide Show DVD $10
High Resolution Scanning (16-Base TIFF) $99
Extra JPEG CD for playback on DVD player (applies to TIFF scans only) $29
Print one 6×4 inch photo of every image 39c each