[nebgranny]

Hello All:
I have a lady who wants me to do a little work for her. She would like me to scan a lot of old negatives and some slides. I do have the scanning equipment with the ability to do this work. I will then archive them to CD or DVD and print some for her.

I have no clue how to charge for this type of work as have not done it except myself family and friends for free.

Can someone please suggest prices for this work. I am not fast but do things very precise and exact and it will be a job well done. I hate to charge by the hour due to this fact. But I do want to make it worth my while. I have a HP 8750 printer which uses vivera inks which are to be archival. I will print on high quality photo paper and CD's or DVD's.

Another question is that I heard via a media report that information placed on CD or DVD may not be readable or retreivable on a lot of different machines in the future. Can someone comment on this please.

I would like to do this job for her. My friend referred her to me. I would appreciate any comments any of yu might have. Thanks Neb

[Cameraken]

Hi Neb.

Do you have a Neg/Slide Scanner? What make is it?

Ken

[Cameraken]

Hi Neb.

Your Canon 8400F has an Optical Resolution of 3200 x 6400 dpi. This is OK and would do a reasonable job.

I own a Minolta Scan Dual 11 which is very slow. It’s fine for scanning in a few slides or negs but I would not use it to do a lot.

It takes about 3 minutes to do a high resolution scan. That means 100 slides would take 5 Hours to scan.

In the UK I can go to a local Print Shop and get 100 slides scanned to CD for £5.99 (UK Pounds) and at High Res. for £7.99 (UK Pounds).

At these prices it is not worth doing the job myself.

Ken

[smiley guy]

I've done this before but only for fam and friends as well. When I inquired with other services about getting this done for my own negs they quoted me a price per frame. Here in Canada from Henry's that quote was around $2/scan. When I realized how much I wanted them to scan for me I realized that I could buy the scanner and do it myself for cheaper. (Incidentally that's how I got myself into this mess of r&r business... )

I would find a rate that works for you on a per slide or per scan basis. Figure something out for a "basic" package, e.g., $1.50 per slide which includes archiving to DVD or CDR. Printing is extra. basic colour adjust could be included or slight charge per frame extra.

As far as DVD or CDR not being readable in the future. Well... of course! Nothing is forever. The data on the disc may be secure for 1000 years into the future but if nobody has a CDR drive or DVD drive you're out of luck. Think of 5.25 floppies, 3.25 floppies, etc... my iMac G5 (1 year old) doesn't even come with a floppy drive. Zip drives? Wax cylinders? Beta? The list goes on. I think putting the negs and slides onto DVD in the form of a slide show is a great way for her to easily access the images and get plenty of joy out of them. As far as actual archival storage she is better to just save the slides and negs in an archival sleeve in a proper box that will protect them. My mother is in the process of doing this with all her slides and negs from when her kids were growing up... big job but important to do.

Best of luck.

[nebgranny]

Hi Ken and Smiley :
Thank you both for the responses. I appreciate your input. I guess I will have to call around local and see what the going price is for our area. This will be interesting to say the least. I will get back to you via a post when I find out. Thanks Neb