Negative Scanning

The Process

Negatives are first cleaned with compressed air. This removes any extra dust and other particles without damaging the negative. For this we use a special air compressor to allow just the right amount of air pressure.

We use the professional grade Nikon SuperCoolSCAN 5000 ED and 9000 ED negative scanners to digitize your negatives. These are dedicated units that produce amazing results when used properly. There are some companies out there that will scan negatives using flat-bed scanners. Those companies will not be able to attain the depth of color or clarity of a more high-end dedicated negative scanner such as the Nikon Coolscan 5000/9000 ED.

Negatives are previewed in the scanning software program where the cropping and other adjustments are set. All negatives are labeled numerically by box marking (ie: FarmHouse_001.jpg). Folders are also named according to the original organizational structure of the negatives.

After all the negative scanning is finished we go through each image one-by-one and make sure that it is oriented properly (people are standing upright) and not flipped (words appearing mirrored). Once the image scanning technician has looked over all the images, a second technician will look over each image again and sign off on the “customer notes sheet” showing that each image has truly been double-checked.

Once all the negatives have been scanned and inspected, they will be burned to our special 100 year archival DVDs (unless otherwise specified by the customer). These disks are regarded as the best medium for long-term storage. Finally, the entire order, no matter what the total size, is backed up onto our company servers. This is referred to as our Lifetime Data Backup plan. At any point a customer can call in and ask for individual images or their whole family history to be burned onto a brand new DVD.

Manual Color Correction Service vs. Image Restoration Service

Manual color correction is described in the Pricing and Basic Info section and mainly is used to fix problems with color. For example if the negative has a yellow cast to it, in many cases we can neutralize that color and bring back the original colors. We will check for the whitest pixel in the important viewable area of the image and reset that to the 100% white value, and do the same for black. No software program can do this because we are evaluating the image based on the important data and disregarding things like backlighting from windows and such. If your images has a color cast to them or are too dark, just ask our image scanning technician to employ the manual color correction service. We can even enhance one or two images so that you can see how beautiful your negatives can be.

The Image Restoration Service will digitally repair negatives. If your negatives have folds, scratches, color blots, fungus or any number of imperfections, ask our image scanning technician for a quote for your negative(s). Even if the image has a piece missing it may be possible to reproduce this missing section based on another negative or other data inside the same negative. It is amazing what can be done with Adobe Photoshop, some extra plug-ins, knowhow and experience. And don’t worry; all of the original data will be saved.