Wednesday, July 13, 2011

SAVING YOUR PHOTOGRAPHIC SLIDES WITH DIGMYPICS.COM

As regular readers of JP Brandano Florida Wedding Photographers know, we do not endorse many products on our blog. We have never dedicated an entire day's blog to one product. Today we are doing just that. Recently I had an idea for an upcoming blog and realized that I had some images that I would need to use. The problem was that those images were taken during my pre-digital days. Most of you remember something called film with those green and yellow boxes. 


When I photographed back then I, like many, always used slide film. Like most of us, I have thousands of slides neatly stored in boxes and sleeves put away in a closet not being seen for years. In the past I had tried buying a converter but ended up taking it back after seeing the results. It was just not very good. The colors were wrong and the quality was really poor. I could buy a really good scanner for about $1500 but once I converted all of these slides, what would I do with it?? I just could not justify spending that kind of money on something that had limited use. After all there is always a new lens that captures our eye!! 


I started looking around for a company that could do the conversion for me at a reasonable price. As I read numerous reviews and looked at many web sites I found one company that seemed to stand out. That company was DIGMYPICS.com, get it Dig my Pics? Okay maybe you need to be my age to get it, but it did get my attention. The fact that they use a Nikon Coolscan 9000 scanner really interested me. I had read elsewhere that it was one, if not the best scanner available. I then read that they manually do color and exposure enhancement and a thorough quality review of each and every slide all for just 39 cents per 35mm slide scanned. In full disclosure that price depends on DPI. For 39 cents it would be at 2500 DPI. You can go up to 4000 DPI at a cost of 69 cents a slide.

I made this image during Phyllis' and my honeymoon in Nassau in 1987. I was shooting down from our hotel room. Think of that, a 1987 slide! That's over 24 years ago converted into a digital file and sent to you on a DVD.  I think the quality is amazing. 
Click on these images for a larger image to see the quality of the scan.


 Some other great features include;

Price - compare it to other companies' gold or platinum levels  (which offer scanning and manual enhancements). I think you will be really happy!


YOU ONLY PAY FOR THE SCANS YOU KEEP. Do you believe this? You check the scans online when they are through and you select the ones you want sent to you!! 100% satisfaction or you don't pay.


You can see your images on line as they are scanning them.


You can have the files made as TIFF files or JPEG files at no extra cost.


You can get free transfer of your scanned photos to Phanfare or Picassa Web Albums. That's a lot of features for a really reasonable cost.

I photographed these butterflies mating in 1997.



They also offer scanning of 35mm negatives, printed photos up to 8x10 and even video tape to DVD. I have not tried any of these services so I cannot comment on their quality.

These images taken in the Banff area of western Canada were made in 2005.



After I received my first batch I immediately started selecting slides for my second order. Slide quality can and will degrade. We have slides that are very important to us and do not want to lose them. For example the images I will be using for a blog in September were extremely important. This service has taken care of that concern for us. By the way their customer service has been terrific. I received an email yesterday from them asking if we were satisfied with the product. Pretty cool touch, I thought.

This image of a couple we were photographing was made in Hawaii about twelve years ago!


This image of a great Blue Heron was made on the campus of Brandeis University over fifteen years ago.


 I really recommend that you try digmypics.com, if you have slides or film that are important to you. Let them know I recommended them, if you do. We do not get any compensation for endorsing them!! Dig it???  

19 comments:

Unknown said...

Awesome company. To be able to bring older images to such vibrant life is a wonderful thing.
All i need now is someone to convert my cassettes to CD's and i would be happy...

Cheers A

BlogNostics said...

All photos captured are special, I wonder if I could choose between the ones I have?
Your images are amazing no matter the age.

Thank you

Bec Owen said...

Wow!! Impressive quality! And great service!

My husband and I were recently looking through his (tons) of slides from his photography days, and I would love to get some of them into digital format. Voila! Digmypics.com!

And these pics are spectacular!

Thank you so much for this information, Jim.

JIM said...

Aj I am pretty sure I read that Amazon has that service, might be worth checking out

Blog It really is not easy to select which ones make the cut... At this price I may do almost all over the next year

Hi Bec..Yup its hard to just let them sit there going to waste.. So far I love this company..In Sept Ill have a blog that I could not have made without them and those images are some of my most prized

Jim

Alpana Jaiswal said...

Wow..you are an extremely talented person..thank u for this very insightful information.

Rimly said...

Wow! Those images dont look at all old. It is like you took them yesterday. Real good quality and beautiful pictures Jim. Loved the ones of the couple under a waterfall and the butterflies mating.

Ann said...

Sounds like a great company! I recently got 1000+ slides from my Aunt, some dating back to the 40's. It will be worth going through them & having some done. Thanks for the info.

Nelieta said...

This is really great Jim! I was looking for a scanner the other day for my negatives. I have such a lot and want to scan it and convert it to jpg´s. The quality looks great! Lovely photos and I am sure you are over the moon!

Jim said...

We didn't take many slide photos in our early travel times... come to think of it, we didn't take many photos either. But now I wish we had. Many moments gone, just the memories and like slides those images are fading.
I have a few friends who I'll refer this to as they are facing up to losing their images or converting them.
Thanks JIM.

charlie nitric said...

Hi Jim -

Your old images look like they were taken recently and are fantastic. The detail and color is amazing. My older sisters have a ton of photos of my mother and father before I was born. I wonder what a professional can do with those old slides, projector tapes, and still shots? It would be nice to have them modified into better quality :)

fantasy in practicality said...

first of all thanks for sharing the information about digmypics.com

all the seven pictures look very recent and fresh. if you had not mentioned the years no one can say that they are from a pre-digital age.

i loved the mating of the butterflies, so prominent and each spot on their body was clear.
the picture of the couple, i guess they are sure to rejuvenate their golden days once again if they saw their pictures now.
the landscape photography and the green ocean waters are really holding on to their colors.
and lastly the Blue Heron, she/he has become a great grand mother/father by now.

enjoyed every bit of your post.

Anonymous said...

Jim, thanks for sharing this information on the company. I also have a lot of slides. I bought a Canon Printer that is suppose to scan my slides. I shot mostly Fuji 100. What did you shot?

Dangerous Linda said...

Thank you so much for this educational post -- I'm totally sold and will contact them immediately! Your images are GORGEOUS as always! Especially the one from your Honeymoon -- SWEET & BEAUTIFUL!

Mari Sterling Wilbur said...

What a great company! The quality of the slides once processed is amazing. I have boxes of slides of my two sons when they were little. The are priceless but almost worthless sitting in boxes in a closet. Here I come digmypics!!

Papercut Doll said...

It must be like finding lost treasures, I would be so tempted to have all my slides done. I found some old cine film and had it converted to video (I know it was a few years ago) it was a video of my nan and myself. The nan I never really knew because she died when I was a baby. Absolutely priceless. I can see by your images that you have some priceless memories there too.

Kriti said...

Really useful information this - Good to know and will keep in mind - thank you Jim! I have to say I love A's comments - I had the same dilemma a few years back - ha ha ha!!

Mary Hudak-Collins livingthescripture.com said...

All of your photos, no matter the age, just seem to jump up off the page. Wonderful work you do :)

Melissa Tandoc said...

Thanks for sharing this info Jim. It's very useful and I'll recommend it to my other photographer friends as well (They'll understand better than I do). Your images are ageless and priceless. I couldn't help but be amazed on how wonderful those shots you took since then. I liked the first photo--your honeymoon with Phyllis. The texture is very smooth. And it's detailed. I like the colors. Oh I didn't know butterflies mated :P. So it took me a while to figure it out...okay, it's taking me longer, so I'll just google the info. Anyhow, the Banff area looks great. I like the deep blue...and the next photo is magnificent! Wow, I liked the angle on that Haiwai shot. Is that you and Phyllis? :P...
Oh and the heron is very clear.

Awesome!Everything is...in this page :). Dig it?

Anonymous said...

Uncle Jim, I have always been a huge fan of the incredible photos that you and aunt Phyllis take. I am so glad to hear that you found such a great way to scan your amazing slides. You are a great writer too. Your posts are always interesting and informative, that's a real talent!

Pete