sbucko Loc: Dublin, OH

I apologize in advance if this has been asked before. I don't want to be asking something like...Nikon or Canon. BTW both are great brands and it's whatever you get used to and like.
Has anyone found a good source or know of a way to have prints scanned to a better than home scanner quality? Thanks!

mgemstone Loc: Chicago/Cocoa beach/La/NY

Questions:
Do you have the negatives?
Who was the photographer (you, family, pro, ?)
What do you hope to do with the scan images (print, post on web, etc.)?

SMURPH66 Loc: PALM BAY FL

HI, HAD SAME QUESTION SOME TIME AGO . FOUND A PRODUCT CALLED PHOTO SAVER( 3IN 1) MADE BY SPECTARE (http://spectareproducts.com ) IT CONVERTS PRINT, SLIDES & FILM TO DIGITIAL FORMAT AND DOES IT QUITE WELL. MAYBE THIS PRODUCT WILL DO THE TRICK FOR YOU. WORKS VERY WELL FOR ME.

Lenfagen

If you want prints to be scanned to digital format you can use services like scancafe or scanmyphotos. The both send you a box which can hold several hundred prints then they scan them and return the original prints and a disk in about a day or two. They cost about $250.00 for about 1000 photos.

Lenfagen

If you want prints to be scanned to digital format you can use services like scancafe or scanmyphotos. The both send you a box which can hold several hundred prints then they scan them and return the original prints and a disk in about a day or two. They cost about $250.00 for about 1000 photos.

sbucko Loc: Dublin, OH

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. About seven years ago when I was shooting with an N80 (or whas it a 70??) I was in Uganda and got some pretty nice shots that I wish I could go back in time and have had my D7000. Oh well. Yes I do have the negatives so I might checkout the options. Thanks again!

mgemstone Loc: Chicago/Cocoa beach/La/NY

If you have the negatives, I suggest getting a negative scanner. Cost varies from $350 to $700 and the resulting digital image will probably be large enough to print a 13 X 19.

sbucko Loc: Dublin, OH

Did you have a brand or model in mind? You seem to have experience with this. I am not sure if I have the time or patience to do my own scanning. I might check it out though. BTW, nice head ornament. Very cool! Are those 'gemstones'?

SpeedyWilson Loc: Upstate South Carolina

You might try the scanners at Walmart, in their photo department. You can do it yourself, and the cost might be reasonable, as long as you plan ahead and have enough photos to fill up a CD. Then you can edit the photos at your leisure on your own computer.

After you have individual image files you can get prints made anywhere you want; especially when they are on sale.

~Wilson~

sbucko Loc: Dublin, OH

Wilson,
Nice photo avatar! I think that I am looking for a little better quality that might require a negative scanner. Would I have to battle back Wal-martians to get to the scanner? :-)

SpeedyWilson Loc: Upstate South Carolina

Our Walmart has a big photo dept, with several scanners. How many other users are there depends on what time of day you go.

I'm not sure if they have scanners for film or not. You might need to buy one for a 100 dollars or so.

This link might help:
http://www.komando.com/tips/index.aspx?id=246

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

Okay, I give up. Since your prints are probably not much better than 240 to 300 dpi quality and most any home scanner can scan at 1200 dpi or sometimes 2400 dpi, which is 4X to 8X as good as your prints, why do you need commercial scanning better than that?

When I scan old family photos at only 600 dpi, I can see the pores of the paper, particles of dust, and other stuff that the human eye can't even start to see on the original prints without a very powerful magnifying glass. I have yet to flatbed scan and print a photo that wasn't better than the original.

sbucko Loc: Dublin, OH

ScanCafe claims that they can do 7mp resolution from color negatives. That sounds pretty good to me. Has anyone here actually used their service for color negatives? I'm not trying to get anyone riled up. Just trying to figure this out. Thanks!

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

I have no clue as to how you convert dots per inch of a scan to megapixels, so I can't comment as to whether that's better than home scanner level or not. I can only say that if I was going to crop a scanned photo at all, I would want to start with something like 14 or 16 or 18MP to allow myself as much as 50% crops (down to 7 or 8 or 9MP) without loss of quality in printing later. If you truly are going to have a 7MP resolution file, it would be fine for many sizes of prints if you don't crop at all and are happy with the compositions as they currently are.

By the way, have no fear of riling anybody up. Nobody is ever riled up about technical or newbie questions around here other than the overly-asked Nikon-Canon-Sony issue. Even then the newbie doesn't really get abused. Giving advice is the part of this forum that we all enjoy most and generously give of ourselves to help as best we can.

Those of us who lay around in here too much get too emotionally involved somehow and start swinging big butcher knives around in the dark at each other until someone get's stabbed and then there's war for a while.