Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, this is an important requirement for most people and one of the main reasons we decided to go to the extra cost of sending every customer our own packing boxes and instructions. After scanning the slides will be placed back in the boxes in exactly the same position as you placed them.

We scan at a true 4200 DPI, the resulting image is around 6000 by 4000 pixels. That's 24 megapixels in digital photography terminology. Perfectly exposed slide film is generally accepted to be equivalent to between 10 megapixels (Kodachrome) and 15 megapixels (Fuji Velvia) so we are scanning at a higher resolution than the film itself. Of course, the quality of the image is much more than just the resolution and that's why we check and adjust the exposure and colour on slides which are too light, dark or have got colour casts such as purple or red due to aging of the chemicals and dyes. We are dependent on the quality of the original image but we do obtain the best image possible, which in many cases is enhanced beyond what you would see in the projected image. There are a few correction examples on our home page.

The JPEG format which we supply as standard is universal in its use on computing devices (e.g. PC or Mac) and across the internet, all social media platforms, all printers and all image editing software. We are happy to supply other image formats if needed though.

Yes. The slide path through our scanner includes a cleaning stage which removes dust and debris using carbon fibre anti-static filaments, followed by air cleaning. This process removes dust which is not physically stuck to the film itself. We do not use digital dust removal e.g Nikon Digital ICE. The reason for this is simply that it is widely acknowledged that the digital approach leads to an overall softening of the image which affects the entire picture. The physical dust removal is so effective that typically no dust is noticed in the vast majority of pictures. If you had a special use for a particular image and noticed a dust spot, it would be easy to remove this spot using an image editor. This would retain the benefit of the sharper image on the 99.99% of the image which is not affected by dust.

We are the only company we are aware of that is able to retain this information! Its done on a project basis which we are happy to discuss and is tailored to the aims and the media. Just contact us if you believe this is relevant, as you will appreciate, it's not a simple task but we can do everything from double scanning to capture the full slide including the mount, to handwriting recognition on the notes, text, objects and landmarks in the image (using AI).

We can supply any format including TIFF. In our opinion JPEG has the best compatibility with websites, social networks, image editing software, phones, tablets, PC or Mac. High Quality JPEGs offer superb quality for the filesize because they use compression to shrink the file size. A tiny 10% compression can more than half the filesize. We can provide JPEGs with 0% compression which is a compromise if you do not want to go fully down the TIF route. TIFF format is more often used in commercial printing and professional editing, it requires more advanced editing software and more computer resources. Tiff files are very large and the space requirements mount up if you have a large number of them. A DVD can be filled by as few as 100 images. Zooming in on our JPEG images and comparing with TIFF there is no perceptible difference between a 7mb JPEG and and a 30mb TIFF image but you could see a difference if performing extensive editing with multiple save/edit again cycles. A great way to determine if you need TIFs is, if the collection is just for your own use, what do you do with your current photos? If you use a full frame DSLR and edit everything from RAW then its likely TIFs are for you and you already knew that before your read this:-) If you are still not sure, it probably means you will be delighted with the regular JPG's