Professional scanning service?

[sar-photo]

I’m thinking of offering a professional negative/transparency scanning service to bring in some extra money.

Images would be scanned at 4000dpi and then cleaned in Photoshop (I don’t use ICE as it degrades the image). The images would be saved as 16 bit TIFF’s and burnt on to a DVD. I can scan 35mm, 120 and LF.

Would a service like this be of any interest to anyone (just trying to figure out if it is worth doing!). I suppose that price would vary depending on the negative size - how much would people be willing to pay for a service like this?

I’m based in the UK.

Cheers
Simon

 

[Keith]

How much you could charge would depend on what type of scanner you're scanning with I would imagine.

 

[sar-photo]

It'll be a Nikon 9000 ED.

 

[JohnTF]

I think the last roll of 35mm scanned to hi res Tifs with a Nikon CS 5000 was $10, and the roll of MF slide was a couple dollars a frame because of the time.

Regards, John

 

[mfunnell]

Images would be scanned at 4000dpi and then cleaned in Photoshop (I don’t use ICE as it degrades the image).

And that is the $64 question: who "cleans" in Photoshop, and how? If it is you, and you exercise your judgement then that's possibly a Thing Of Goodness.

But it is also time-consuming and about as boring as bat excrement. Do you want to do this? For how long? And if you employ someone else to do this, "cheaply", how committed will they be and how well might they judge?

Inquiring minds, and all...

...Mike

 

[Matus]

I am using one of the scan services in Germany and it costs around 2 euro for 4000 dpi scan in TIFF format (48bit possible too) from MF film per scan. The guy is using ICE (though he would turn it off if requested) and I have never had an issue on that. I find more of a problem that the scanner often does not hold the film flat so the edges tend not to be as sharp. He claims that using AN glass deteriorates the sharpness of the scans. So I am not sure I would want to pay premium for hand spotting in Photoshop - and I know how enjoyfull 😎 such a work is - I do that with my 4x5 scans (Imacon X5). Spotting the sky is easy - but if there is a hair to be removed from a part that has important structure - it is quite some work and if there is no other way round - I prefer to do this myself.

 

[furcafe]

For comparison purposes, here's the pricing for ScanCafe, which does all of their scanning in Bangalore, India:

http://www.scancafe.com/pricing/scanning