LowellR

Has anyone scanned negatives as part of their business, how much would a person charge the public, any ideas?

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

The basic procedure and equipment are the same as they are with slides, so I would use the price on the later as a guide for the former, BUT as an amateur scanning his own, I find scratching to be more of an issue for negatives than for slides, so any verbiage needs to include the fact that the basic procedure scans what is there, not what the user wishes were/were not there.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

I think it would depend on how high end the scanner is and how much resolution is needed.

BebuLamar

Scanning services charge the price quite low for scanning. If an individual doing it with regular equipment not high speeed one I don't think one can make any decent money.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

What pixel resolution would you deliver?
What file format?
What time-line?
What delivery method, online link & download, physical media, other?
What experience do you have in this endeavor?
What scanning equipment will you use?
What is your breakeven point for this business?
How does a customer give you negatives for scanning?
How will you return the negatives after scanning?

If a customer gave you 10 roles of 36exp 35mm negatives, uncut, 7 color and 3 B&W. How long do you think it will take you to scan and return both the files and the negatives? Will you need to cut the negative strips? How will you manage keeping the negatives organized, especially if needing to cut to scan?

Steved3604

With a real nice (read $$) Noritsu Commercial scanner -- whatever the market will bear on price. Digital camera = labor intensive and no auto adjustment. Take a look at some larger commercial labs and you will have your answer.

Don, the 2nd son Loc: Crowded Florida

Mowing lawns would likely be a better choice.

Sidwalkastronomy Loc: New Jersey Shore

Not the best side hustle I've seen. You have to figure all time, effort, cost of customer acquisition, bla,bla bla and then move on to something else.

Henlopen Loc: Lewes, Delaware

Don, You are indeed a Wise old owl.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

These are all very valid questions I've considered as I also plan to offer a service to copy slides, prints, and negatives to digital files. If I do it, it will be aimed at high quality, custom services. I won't churn out crap. I won't be using a scanner, either. They are WAAAAAY too slow!

BebuLamar

Yup! High speed comercial scanners like the Noritsu HS-1800 are not real scanners they are really cameras.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

I'm still researching this for my own potential service. I'm not interested in serving amateurs with piles of dirty, short strips of scratched negatives, or slides in loose, warped mounts. IF I do this, my images will be captured with a digital camera, in raw mode, and processed in Lightroom including:

Exposure and brightness adjustment
White balance adjustment
Sharpening
Highlight and Shadow recovery
Cropping to specification
Spotting

As this sort of work is very labor intensive, it will be expensive. I will target enthusiasts who care for their photographic film originals properly, and wish to make digital medium size prints (8x10 to 16x20) from them if required.

Plenty of mass market slide, print, and negative digitizing services exist to cater to the average Jane and Joe with a few shoeboxes of media from the distant past. The good ones aren't cheap. The mediocre ones are either cheap, or send original media to sweat shops in emerging nations to keep the cost down! The turnaround time for those is lengthy.

Fast, cheap, good... PICK ANY TWO.

> You want it fast? It won't be cheap if you want it good, and it won't be good if you want it cheap.

> You want it cheap? It won't be fast if you want it good, and it won't be good if you want it fast.

> You want it good? It won't be cheap if you want it fast, and it won't be fast if you want it cheap.

Camera scanning clean, uncut film goes pretty quickly. I can pull a whole roll of 36 exposure film through my Essential Film Holder and copy every frame in about ten minutes. Initial negative conversions take a short time in Negative Lab Pro. It's the color and tonal adjustments and scratch and dust spotting that take time.

When film is cut into strips shorter than six inches (four frames of 35mm), it takes a lot more time. A single cut frame of 35mm film is a royal pain in the neck! For short bits of film, I use old enlarger negative carriers. I have a single slide carrier for 2x2" slides.

Done right, I think camera scans are worth at least five bucks a pop.

Truck, 1976, from 35mm H&W Control VTE negative (exotic film)

(Download)

Sidwalkastronomy Loc: New Jersey Shore

How many people have rolls of UNCUT negatives?
I have a lot because I was shooting film astrophotography and cutting them by the lab was risky at best.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

The few percent of photographers who use film often order "develop and sleeve" from their labs. They get the entire roll of film developed, returned, uncut, in a clear sleeve. This makes it easy to run the whole roll through a high speed scanner or a film holder used with a macro lens and digital camera.

Many custom labs offer "Develop and Scan" or "Develop and Sleeve" options. Some will cut film in strips of 5 or 6 frames and put them in archival plastic (polypropylene) album pages.

Way back in 1969, I began storing whole rolls of cut film in Negafile glassines. Most of my old 35mm B&W film is in strips of six frames, which are easy to run through an Essential Film Holder. Alas, one-, two-, and three-frame strips can't go through that device, because they are too short.

Fredrick Loc: Former NYC, now San Francisco Bay Area

Bill, if you do provide this service in the future, I’m assuming that you’ll let us know? I, for one, would be interested in having you scan some of our old negatives. Thanks.