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GENERAL
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ORDERS & SHIPPING
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PHOTOS, ALBUMS & SLIDES
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PHOTO BOOKS & RESTORATION
Covid 19 update – are you open for business?
Yes, we remain open for business. We are a small run home business and are observing all necessary safety precautions & recommendations. Our service relies upon Royal Mail and Courier services, these services continue to operate very efficiently. For those local to us, order drop off and pick up continues as normal, however we do ask those customers visiting us to wear a mask.
We have used successfully over the years www.parcel2go.com to get great service and excellent value for our return postage. No need to venture out unless you need to! Stay safe everyone.
Where are you based and what address do I send my order to?
We are based just outside of Holmfirth, West Yorkshire. We will send you our address once an order has been placed via our website along with the order confirmation.
Why isn’t your address on your website?
Ah, good question! We don’t show it because we want to make sure that we know about ALL orders that are being sent to us and approximately when they will be sent. We then know to expect an order and keep a look out for it. Also, sometimes we are closed or not accepting orders and we would hate your precious memories to sit on a post office shelf waiting for us to collect!
What areas are covered by your service?
We cover the whole of the United Kingdom. If you want to use our services and reside outside of the UK, please contact us.
Will my pictures be in safe hands?
Yes they will! To date, we are delighted to report that we have never had any problems. We let you know by email or phone as soon as we have received your photos, albums, slides or negatives. When we send your order back to you, we send via a tracked service.
If I have my scans saved to a DVD disc, can I put the disc in my DVD player and view the images on my TV?
This cannot be guaranteed. Our DVD discs are supplied to be viewed on a PC or Mac that can handle JPG or TIFF files. To view a DVD on your TV, the file must be burnt as a DVD-video.
To create a DVD-video disc containing your scans, you’ll need to create a slideshow movie and save separately. If this is something you would like us to help you with, just contact us to discuss your requirements.
If your TV is a smart TV and has a USB port on it, you may well be able to view your scanned pictures as jpegs from the USB on your TV. This will however depend solely upon the make and age of your TV.
Can I copy the disc or USB drive you send to me?
Yes you can. All scans on the USB, DVD disc or digital download are yours and and you can copy and view wherever and as often as you wish.
Can I copy the disc or USB drive you send to me?
Yes you can. All scans on the USB, DVD disc or digital download are yours and and you can copy and view wherever and as often as you wish.
Do I need to know exact numbers of photos or slides that I am sending you?
Absolutely not – there are better things to do in like other than counting photos! Just give us your best guesstimate which then gives you an idea of cost. We count everything we scan and invoice accordingly. Don’t worry, if you totally underestimate, we will let you know before scanning everything, just to ensure that you are happy to continue.
What is your address for sending my order to?
We are based just outside of Holmfirth, West Yorkshire. We will send you our address along with a confirmation of your order once you have placed your order via our website.
I am fairly local to Holmfirth, can I drop off my order instead of shipping?
Absolutely! Just let us know that this is what you wish to do at the time of placing your order and we can arrange a convenient day and time for this to take place.
I have placed an order via the website but I haven’t received any emails from you, what do I do?
If you placed an order on our website, you should automatically receive a confirmation email. The email has our address in it to send your order to and a copy of your order attached. If you didn’t receive the order confirmation with our address, firstly, please check you spam or junk folder,
If emails are in your junk folder then please add [email protected] as a safe sender to ensure any future emails are received directly to your inbox. If it is not there, please contact us as soon as you can by email or phone.
How & when do I pay for my order?
We do not take any money upfront. We send customers an invoice upon completion of an order. We accept payment via bank transfer (BACS). Details for payment are included at the bottom of our invoice. If this is not possible, do contact us to discuss.
Do you charge VAT?
No, we do not add VAT to our prices.
Is there a minimum scanning charge?
Yes, there is a minimum charge of £15.00 per scanning order.
How long will it take to complete an order?
The short answer is, it depends. The turnaround time for your digital conversion project depends on the quantities you have and what is included in your order. We aim to complete orders within 7 days. However, during busy periods such as Christmas and depending upon the size and complexity of the order, this could be longer. We will always let you know the approximate timescales. Feel free to contact us for a more accurate time estimate.
I have a rush job. Do you offer an express service?
We will always try to accommodate customers timescales. The best answer to this question is to contact us and we can discuss what you need and by when.
What is DPI and does it really matter?
DPI stands for “dots per inch”, and it is a commonly used but often misunderstood and misleading technical technical term in scanning.
DPI tells you the number of pixels per inch that a scanner will produce in a scanned file. The higher the dpi, the larger your scan will be in terms of both pixels and megabytes e.g. actual file size. Large file sizes are notorious for clogging up hard drive storage so it is essential to balance DPI with future needs.
We do believe that your scanned images should be scanned at a high quality resolution. This is important since you may not be sure what you will use your image scans for in the future. So generally speaking, we believe what is needed is a scan that has resolution high enough to allow decent size enlargements if you decide to get any scans printed. On the other hand, it’s also possible to scan with too high a resolution too. Firstly, size makes the file difficult to view or edit if too large. Some very detailed scans can also pick up and magnify the grain. So we feel that our standard resolution of 3200 dpi or 12 megapixels for 35mm slides and film negatives, and 600 dpi for individual photos is a perfect balance.
Do you keep a copy of the images after scanning?
Yes, we keep digital backups of all customers files for 28 days on our secure hard drives after which they are securely deleted from our systems. We do this in case you need more copies or lose your data when backing up. We are happy to accommodate special requests to extend or shorten this period if requested by a customer.
Do you ever use a customers scans on your website or for anything else?
Absolutely not. We will never use any customer images. They are the customers property – besides which, we would be infringing copyright laws unless we were given express permission from a customer…..which we would never ask for.
What format will the files be in?
We save all our scans to JPG as standard. If you want a different format such as TIFF, please contact us.
Not sure how many slides, photos or negatives I have, do I have to count them?
Life is possibly too short for that! Unless you want to count everything, we are happy to give you an estimate once your order has been received (to ensure no huge surprises regarding the total cost). A full and accurate count takes place as we scan and we will send you an invoice for the actual number.
Do I get my originals back?
Without a doubt. They are your property, even if you asked us to dispose of the originals once scanned, we would decline your request…..we love old photos, we could never bring ourselves to destroy them!
How long will it take to scan my order?
We aim to complete orders within 7 days. However, during busy periods such as Christmas and depending upon the size and complexity of the order, this could be longer. We will always let you know the approximate timescales.
Will you scan my photos, slides etc, in the order they are bundled?
Yes we certainly endeavour to do this. Occasionally a slip up may occur but this can easily be rectified on your computer.
Can you put my digital scans into separate named folders & what will it cost?
Yes we can. Just make sure your photos, slides or negatives are put into separate bundles and add a title for the folder name you’d like. We recommend that you put your images into envelopes or similar and write on it the folder name that you want to see or use rubber bands and a post-it or similar. Folders are a FREE service with the exception of our loose photo scanning service. This service is semi automated, as such, naming folders slows the process considerably. If photo bundles for individual folders contain fewer than 25 photos, and there are a number of these, we apply a small charge of £0.50 per folder for making and naming the folder.
Can I send my photo albums to you?
You most certainly can. In fact PicSave have become the ‘go to’ experts for a photo album scanning service. We are able to offer a great deal of flexibility with our service, so if you don’t see exactly what you want with the service, simply contact us.
Do you clean slides and negatives before scanning?
Yes we do. We try to eliminate as much dust as possible pre-scan. We lightly brush each slide with a Kinetronics anti-static brush to dislodge dust particles then blow each slide or negative individually with compressed air. If your slides are very dirty or have mould or fungus, we recommend cleaning them thoroughly before sending them to us. We can provide heavier cleaning for dirty slides but unfortunately we would need to apply an additional charge based upon how bad the slides or negatives are. This would be discussed pre sending in your scans or once identified by us upon receipt of your order.
Do you use any software to reduce dust spots on slides and negatives?
Absolutely. When we can, we use Digital Ice or a similar alternative software that uses the infra red mapping principle. Dust spots, minor scratches can be removed by using this. It is not perfect however! We do not use high settings as this can very often badly distort things such as eyes that the software sometimes think are dust particles and will blur or remove them! Our view is it is better to see a few speckles of dust than to blur or distort an image too much.
Do you crop and rotate photos or do I have to do it when I get the scans back?
We will crop and orientate your photos. We’d love to guarantee 100% accuracy….but very occasionally, we may not be able to determine the correct oreintation. Should this happen, you should be able to easily orientate on your computer.
Will you scan photos that have been taken by a professional photographer?
That depends. These photos are the copyright of the photographer and permission must be obtained to make a copy of any sort. The only exception to this is where you have the permission from the photographer in writing. We assume that you have the rights to all images that are sent to us and accept no liability for any copyright infringement.
Some of my photographs are a little risqué, is this a problem?
We can scan your risqué photos if you want us to. Our service is discrete and if they are loose photos, then almost entirely automated. We will not however scan anything that is illegal.
I have a rush order for photos, photo albums or slides, can you help?
Absolutely, if you are in a rush and need a quick turnaround, we can offer an Express service for a small premium. Just contact us if you need this service.
Can you dispose of my original photographs or photo albums once you have scanned them rather than sending them back if I ask?
Sorry, no, we love photos far too much! We won’t destroy any photos, slides or negatives, will send back everything we have received from you.
My photo Album pages are a bit bigger than A3, can you still scan them?
In certain circumstances yes we would but would have to charge for a double scan and merge if the actual pictures do not all fit within the A3 scan. We would scan the page twice to capture all of the photos and then photo merge/stitch the scans together. The additional charge would be the cost of an additional scan.
Do you restore physical hardcopy photos?
Our restoration service is for digital restoration only. A photo must be scanned for us to restore a digital file. We cannot repair an orignal hardcopy photo, only a digitised version of it.
How do I send you a photo for restoration?
Good question! You can either email your picture to [email protected] if the file size is not too large. An easy solution to getting a digital image to us is to upload it to us – this can be done on our photo restoration page. Alternatively, you can send us your hardcopy photo and we will scan it to obtain the digital image. Contact us to for help.
How do you determine the cost of photo restoration?
It is dependant on the amount of work and time required to make your pictures perfect. We repair and touchup images in Photoshop.
Can you restore blurred or poor ?
It is dependant on the amount of work and time required to make your pictures perfect. We repair and touchup images in Photoshop.
Will I be charged if you are unable to restore my damaged photo?
Absolutely not. If we cannot restore your photo, you will not be charged.
Photo Books
Is the design cost for a photo book a standard charge no matter how many pages?
Yes it is. We have one standard cost for design.
Do you send me a draft of my photo book to check over before printing?
Absolutely, we will send you unto 3 pdf drafts with changes for free. Additional changes over and above this will be charged at £10 per pdf file sent.