best service to print from slides or negatives?

[pna]

Hi all,

I've recently had a bunch of my father's color slides digitized through scancafe, and now that I can easily sort through them on my computer, I'm interested in getting some fairly large (20x30) prints made from some of them.

I realize I could just use the scans (3000 dpi) and print them, but feel like I might as well just have them printed from the original slides if possible. Do any of you have recommendations for an online service that still prints from slides? And do they actually use the slide, or just likely scan it at 3000 dpi and then print that?

Thanks for any advice you all have!

 

[pna]

Still hoping for advice on printing from slides and negatives in the digital age.

Where do all you film shooters send your slides and negatives to be printed?

thanks!

 

[etbull]

Sorry I don't have info on printing from slides. However, I have been meaning to get my mother's collection of slides digitized. How did scancafe work out for you?

 

[pna]

Sorry I don't have info on printing from slides. However, I have been meaning to get my mother's collection of slides digitized. How did scancafe work out for you?

Scancafe worked out great for me. There was a bit of a snafu getting everything back to me on schedule (before xmas), but I do believe that was largely out of their control. They were a little bungling on trying to resolve that to get me my scans in time, but never in any way that made me worry about my slides. And, to their credit, one of the many solutions they proposed did end up allowing me to get my pictures in time.

As a further testimonial, they advertised a 22 cent per negative / slide special soon after I got back from the holiday, and I jumped on it to do the rest of my collection. I'd recommend them. I haven't seen anyone *not* recommend them that's used them (which eventually convinced me), only people (understandably) nervous about sending their priceless negatives to India. In the end I decided that the risk was quite small, and the benefit was tremendous. I'm glad I did.

 

[ChrisA]

Hi all,

I've recently had a bunch of my father's color slides digitized through scancafe, and now that I can easily sort through them on my computer, I'm interested in getting some fairly large (20x30) prints made from some of them.

I realize I could just use the scans (3000 dpi) and print them, but feel like I might as well just have them printed from the original slides if possible. Do any of you have recommendations for an online service that still prints from slides? And do they actually use the slide, or just likely scan it at 3000 dpi and then print that?

Thanks for any advice you all have!

A 3000 DPI scan like you have is OK for a 14 inch wide print.

ScanCafe does decent work but for what you want done the slides need to be re-scanned using very high quality equipment and and then the digital files given some time in Photoshop. Having this work done in the US by scilled profesionals is not cheap but I assume we are only talking abut a handful of images.

20x30 is a VERY large print from such a small slide or negative. It really is past the limit of what you can do with a small format SLR. But if you want a quality print you need to find a good pro lab that can make hand made prints. There are many around.

In the Los Angeles area one of the best labs is A&I. They are in Hollywod and deal mostly with profesional photographers. They will accept work sent in Fed Ex and ship back the same way. They are expensive but you get the service of an experienced tech that you can talk to and tell him what you want. Give him a cheap digital ink jet print and mark crop lines with a sharpie and circle areas to be made brighter and where you'd like some highlights to be knocked down. You might also incluse notes about color and how to render it. Costom made prints will be fine art quality. But at 20x30 you will see every little defect, film grain and it will not be perfectly sharp. Your slides and negative would need to be very good to avoid that. Normally one would use medium format or large format camera if the intent was a 30" wide print

http://aandi.com/

 

[luminosity]

I'm fortunate enough to have a pro lab near me that does a wide range of film processing and printing, so I use them .

 

[Keebler]

Scancafe worked out great for me. There was a bit of a snafu getting everything back to me on schedule (before xmas), but I do believe that was largely out of their control. They were a little bungling on trying to resolve that to get me my scans in time, but never in any way that made me worry about my slides. And, to their credit, one of the many solutions they proposed did end up allowing me to get my pictures in time.

As a further testimonial, they advertised a 22 cent per negative / slide special soon after I got back from the holiday, and I jumped on it to do the rest of my collection. I'd recommend them. I haven't seen anyone *not* recommend them that's used them (which eventually convinced me), only people (understandably) nervous about sending their priceless negatives to India. In the end I decided that the risk was quite small, and the benefit was tremendous. I'm glad I did.

the delay was probably due to the fact they send the slides to India for scanning and then sent back. Not alot of people are aware of that fact.

not knocking it as some ppl are ok with it, but it's a public awareness thing that slides are shipped off continent.

 

[Freis968]

I just placed my order and sent it out yesterday to scancafe...good thing I am not in a hurry, here is their response email to my order after being placed.

Thank you for placing an order with ScanCafe! Your order number is blank with an estimated online date of August 12, 2010 if you ship your order to us today.