Services

How Much Will It Cost?

We know you're on a budget. That's why we strive to meet our clients where they are: from simple photo scanning to full service organizing and digitization of multiple media types. It's nearly impossible to say how much your project will cost without digging into details. What types of items do you have? What sizes are they? What is the state of your items? How big is your collection? How many keywords do you want, for searchability? These questions, and many more, we ask at the beginning of the journey. Each task, while adding value, also adds time and therefore cost. Getting your family's photo and home movie collection archived and ready to pass on to the next generation is an investment in your family history.

How do I know how many photos I have?

Below are some tips to help you begin to answer that question.

• For loose, modern type photos, stack them and pinch the stack together snugly. Measure the length of the stack with a ruler. One inch = approximately 100 photos.
• For albums, count the number of photos on a page, then count the number of pages (don't forget the back!). Multiply the number of photos by the number of pages and you have a quick estimate of how many photos the album holds.

It all starts with a conversation.

During our first phone conversation we gather basic details and answer any questions you may have. If we both want to move forward, we provide free in-person consultations to potential clients in the St. Louis area. We dig deeper and review your collection to get a solid foundational understanding of your collection and your goals. We meet at a mutually agreeable location (usually a client's home) take photos, review your collection, and gather up-front details, then send you a formal written estimate.

We've put together some case studies

to give you an idea of what we do and how long projects take. All projects include a detailed inventory upon receipt, a personalized instruction manual, and a master copy of the digital files on a thumb drive.

Delicate Family Photo Albums Scanning: Number of Scans: 206          Hours: 30          Cost: $750
This project included 4 photo albums from the 1940s to the 1970s, with multiple photos on each page. The albums were disassembled and reassembled in order to access the full page and provide the best quality scan. The full pages were scanned; with the exception of pages the client had noted via post its. We used a combination of flatbed scanner and camera scanner. Each scan was reviewed, straightened, and cropped as needed. Detailed notes from the pages were converted into over 350 keywords. We created a digital photo hub with 4 folders-a folder for each album.

Comprehensive Family Collection: Number of Scans: 8,600        Hours: 80          Cost: $2,000 

This project included 9 individual sleeve-style albums, 2 'magnetic' or 'sticky' albums (the ones with sticky pages and a plastic pull-back cover), 21 art portfolios, 8 scrapbook style albums, 4 spiral-bound 'books' with original works, 2 USBs, and 4500 photos in envelopes from when they were developed. We organized a photo box of loose photos that was not organized when we received the collection, integrating the photos into the other groups. We used a combination of camera scanner, high-speed scanner, and flatbed scanner. Each scan was reviewed, straightened, and cropped as needed. We removed items from individual albums and portfolios and then replaced after scanning. 'Magnetic' album pages were scanned, then each image was cropped into an individual .jpg file. We removed over 1,000 obvious duplicates during the project. We created a digital photo hub with 65 folders-one to mimic each album, portfolio, or designated group within the collection. Images on USBs were reviewed, and 1 copy of each image was included in the final digital hub. We placed labels on each album, binder, and box to indicate the year it was converted to digital. We added keywords of the years. Finally, we uploaded the folders to the client's Forever.com cloud account.

Loose Family Photos:  Number of Scans: 1,100          Hours: 13          Cost: $325

This project included 27 years' worth of loose photos. The client had placed photos for each year into a plastic photo box and labeled with the year. We scanned the photos with our high-speed scanner, added keywords of the 4 main family members and the years, then uploaded to the client's cloud account.