Early Black Friday Sale for Digitizing Home Memories with ScanDigital

If you’ve read The Family Curator for a while, you know that I am a big fan of digitizing home memories either do-it-yourself or using a state-side digitizing service. ScanDigital, located in the Los Angeles area, is my go-to source when I don’t have the time or equipment for certain projects, and because I use their services myself, I want to pass on the news of a great chance to save 30% with their early Black Friday promotion.

Last spring I toured ScanDigital for the second time to see first-hand how they grown from my first visit in 2009. Once again, I was impressed to find a secure tracking system in place and to discover that all work is done onsite by trained technicians. I have used their services to scan oversize hand-tinted photographs, panorama photographs, and color slides, and to digitize 16mm film.

I asked Facebook friends to forward their questions about ScanDigital services, and was able to learn a bit more about digitizing on my visit.

• Yes, Donna Pointkouski, they can scan 35mm negatives and give you a digital image, either 2000 or 4000dpi.
• Miriam Midkiff wanted to know about file formats, and while the default scan format is JPG, they will also scan in TIFF format if requested. Ask about pricing.
• Like Susan Kitchens, I wanted to know about using an empty hard drive instead of “burning a gazillion DVDs,” and yes, they do that too. My 16mm films were digitized directly to a hard drive, in a read-to-edit format.
• Kaila Schwartz wanted to know if ScanDigital worked on any public archive projects (good question) and I heard that they do quite a bit of work for local libraries and historical projects.

Security was my biggest worry in sending off my stuff to be ditigized, so I spent some time learning about the intake and tracking system. Here’s a brief overview: orders arrive in all kinds of envelopes and cartons; they are placed in a holding area until processing. Within hours or a few days, each box is individually opened, and the contents inventoried, tagged, and moved into a labeled bin. The bins are neatly stacked ready for the technicians to work with the contents — one order at a time. When the order is complete, it is repacked and shipped back to the sender. The digitized order is uploaded to the ScanDigital website and you receive a link to your personal gallery.

1. The intake shelves hold packages from all over the country. 
It might look scary, but all is under control!

2. Personal boxes are opened, inventoried, labeled,
and stacked, ready for the techs.

Since my last visit, ScanDigital has moved to even larger quarters in nearby Torrance where they handled my most recent order, digitizing a few hundred full color slides from my mom’s estate. I sent in a box, waited a few weeks, and received my originals and a DVD filled with digital images. The images are also available on my ScanDigital account, which is a nice bonus. I will share the link with my sister and she can download any photos she would like to have in her own collection.

To receive the Early Black Friday Sale discount of 30% off scanning services, use this link and enter the code SDSAVE30. You must place your order online by Sunday, November 6th, but you can ship your box the next day or so.

Disclosure: Yes, I am an affiliate and earn a modest referral fee if you click on the Scan Digital banner or link to visit their site; I am also a satisfied customer and have toured the facilities twice to insure that my memories were being well handled. ScanDigital recently moved to even larger quarters and I look forward to visiting their new site soon.