7 Best Photo Scanning Services
Fixthephoto’s experts reviewed many photo scanning services to help you choose a reliable and affordable online service to save your old images, film negatives or slides stored somewhere in your attic.
GoPhoto is our choice because it’s not expensive and this photo scanning service lets you sort your photos online after scanning.
1. GoPhoto - Our Choice
- Very intuitive
- Saves slides and negatives
- Charges only for scans you keep
- Free unlimited online library
- None
Verdict: GoPhoto is a user-oriented scanning photo service, which you can use instead of buying a slide scanner and dealing with all the files on your own. There are 4 main features that make GoPhoto one of the best companies offering such services.
The first advantage is the set shipping fee. Regardless of the amount of stuff you send them, the fee is $20, round trip. Opening the order, you print out a UPS label, and they subsidize any additional shipping expenses over the fixed cost. The second thing is that you can send GoPhoto your files without structuring them in advance.
Go Photo scanning service doesn’t require any upfront payment, which is rather a rare practice among such companies. Only when you receive you scans, look them through and decide which ones to keep or delete, you have to pay GoPhoto. Mind that you pay only for the slides that you keep.
There is free access to the unlimited online gallery. In such a way, you can organize your pictures, save copies and share them on social networks.
- Find out about the best photo restoration software.
2. ScanCafe
- Lowest price
- Best photo quality
- Instant downloading
- Limited changes applied to every scan
- You can’t customize value kit options
- Scans aren’t grouped into folders
Verdict: Scan Cafe helps people transform a huge variety of old home media, including photos and slides, VHS tapes and 8mm, Super 8 and 16mm film into a digital form with the help of the best photo scanners. The service offers 3000 dpi for scanned slides and negatives and 600 dpi for scanned printed photos.
Many complimentary ScanCafe reviews are related to the very affordable pricing policy this service has. Here you can order printing of 1 image for 33 cent (up to 8x10 in size), buy choosing the “Value Kit” option, the price gets even lower – 21 cents per photo.
ScanCafe sends you the kit, you fill it with pictures and send it back. This is the best way to scan a lot of photos with the price starting at 29 cents/photo for 500 scans.
Once ScanCafe is done with your images, you get them back, as well as DVD with scans and online gallery created specifically for you. In such a way, you can easily share your photos online.
3. Memories Renewed
- Best dpi for scanning photos
- Fast turnaround
- Decent image restoration services
- Transfer audio from cassettes
- More expensive if compared to other similar services
Verdict: Memories Renewed can be called the best photo scanner service if you are interested in the fast digitization and the excellent resolution of scans. It also offers near-perfect image restoration services, which is another argument in favor of this company. Memories Renewed accepts analog photos, slides and film negatives, and then skillfully converts them into detailed digital files. You can send them entire photo albums of scrapbooks and mark the images that have to be scanned. Not all services offer such a possibility.
If you are looking for an all-in-one scanning service, Memories Renewed is an ideal variant. The lowest price is 60 cents for image (up to 8.5x11). Though it is more expensive than other photo scanning services, it produces top-quality scans. I also like that the money is deducted from your credit card only when your scans are ready for delivery. Many services ask for 50% upfront.
- View the best film scanners.
4. ScanDigital
- Broad functionality
- Can digitize video
- Revision before final processing
- The photo is re-edited if a client doesn’t like the result
- Slowest turnaround
Verdict: ScanDigital appeals to many clients because of a vast variety of scanning services it offers. You can order scanning of printed photos to VHS, Super 8, 8mm or 16mm film to DVD, as well as transform negatives and slides. However, such a remarkable variety of photo scanning services is priced accordingly. The lowest cost of a scanned photo at 600 dpi is 68 cents. There is also an option of 88cents/photo for 1200 dpi.
Each photo undergoes 3 stages of technical reviews before it is sent to a client, so you can be sure about the quality of their work. In case, you don’t like the final variant, ScanDigital will rescan the photo(s) for free.
5. ScanMyPhotos
- Fastest turnaround
- Convenient UI
- Wonderful photo quality
- Lots of features
- High price except for bulk orders
- Limited delivery options
Verdict: ScanMyPhoto is a perfect service if you want to get your images scanned the fastest way possible. On average, these guys spend from 7 to 10 business days for pay-per-scan images, but you can enjoy the specific one-day scanning option on prepaid orders of up to 10,800 images. However, this service applies only to printed photos, not any other media, e.g. negatives or slides.
If you live in Irvine, California you can visit their scanning office and discuss some details of your order. Anyway, choosing such super-fast scanning old photos service, you have to put up with some inconveniences. They don’t accept dusty and disorderly boxes of images, so you need to prepare your assets in advance.
Another thing to keep in mind is that if your images are packaged backwards, the back part not the front one will be scanned! It may seem a bit discouraging, as if the company doesn’t care a lot about each order.
- Find out more about the highest quality image format.
6. Dijifi
- Amazing functionality
- Best photo processing
- Best resolution for scanning documents and other media
- Fast turnaround
- Quite a high price
Verdict: Dijifi is the most expensive scan old photos to digital service on this list and such high prices aren’t justified by fast turnaround time. However, there is no other company that can compete with Dijifi in terms of photo processing, which is of invaluable importance if your old precious pictures have been damaged by time or natural phenomena.
Dijifi team boasts awesome photo retouching skills, making your old photos look even better than originals ever did. Besides, you are unlikely to notice any traces of digital manipulations. Still, not everyone is ready to pay $95 for 1-hour retouching at the time of writing, especially if Memories Renewed charges $60 per hour.
- Address our photo restoration services to get professionally edited photos.
7. Digital Memories
- 60-day free backup service
- Convenient interface
- Integration with cloud service
- Excellent photo quality
- High price
Verdict: Digital Memories cooperates with MiMedia thus keeping the copies of your scanned images and other data on a cloud service, which is a smart decision in case of hardware failures. Actually, this is one of the key things you need to pay attention to while selecting the best place to scan photos.
Digital Memories offers 60 days of free backup after scanning photos.You can continue the backup period for an additional monthly fee. MiMedia also allows you to back up your entire library of digital media files, even those that haven’t been scanned by the service. You can stream home videos and share photos from any Wi-Fi-enabled device.
- Read about the history of photo retouching.
Ann Young
Hi there, I'm Ann Young - a professional blogger, read more
