Digitizing prints/negs/slides for extra income: insights?

Lettermanian · Aug 17, 2023

*Edit: I meant to post this in Open Talk, not here. Can a mod move this to Open Talk? Thanks

As with many people and families these days, money is tight, so I am researching ways to earn some extra income, and in the process give my kids some experience in "small business". I have been thinking of offering services (locally only) to create digital files of older photos, photo albums, scrapbooks, negs and slides. I am in the process of purchasing the necessary equipment (flatbed scanner mainly), and will try this out first on my own photos/negs/slides etc before offering services to customers. I'll probably ask a couple of friends/neighbours if they're interested in having me digitize some of their photos for free as a test run, so to speak. I can also create digital files from VHS videos, audio cassettes, etc, so there are other services possible. I should be clear that I'm not looking to grow this into a large business; it's meant only to be a source of supplemental income.

If anyone has experience in doing the same, I'd appreciate any insights into the pros and cons of offering such a service. I would write up a basic Terms and Conditions/Agreement, which would include the following:

- Privacy. I was thinking of offering files on a usb stick and keeping copies of the files for a week or two to ensure the customer can acres all of the files on their computer, then deleting them. I would not scan any photos that contain nudity or other offensive material. Is this a can of worms though? As the service provider I assume I can state my own terms of service.

- Copyright material. I will not copy VHS movies or audio cassettes other than home video/audio recordings. However, I'm unsure about old photos that were shot by a professional portrait photographers, such as old (keeping in mind old means pre-digital only) wedding or school photos, etc. In most cases there would be no way for the customer to get in touch with the original photographer in order to obtain digital files of such photos. I also would not be using the images at all myself, they remain in the customer's possession. What would be acceptable practise about these types of photos?

- Equipment. I am going to start out small, probably an Epson Perfection V39ii scanner to pair with my M2 Mac mini and the built-in software or the Silverfast software. For negs and slides a stand-alone unit (Kodak?). The more expensive Epson V600 scanner also has holders for 135mm negs and slides. I know what local companies are charging for their services so I would base my pricing on that but slightly lower, after ensuring I can produce good file quality.

I know there are many other aspects to doing something like this, but the first two issues in particular are where I have questions. I understand tax issues and other such things; years ago I ran a small business in lawn and yard care.

Thanks for any helpful replies, especially on issues I may not have thought about

--
"Be yourself. No one can say you're doing it wrong." -Charles M. Schulz
"I love mankind... it's PEOPLE I can't stand!!" - Linus

Lettermanian · Aug 23, 2023

graybalanced said:
Lettermanian said:

- Privacy…

- Copyright material…

Click to expand...

For these two, just find a small business lawyer, especially one that deals in intellectual property issues. Have them help you set your policies and practices to avoid the biggest potential problems that they have probably seen a hundred times already.

Canada does have strict image copyright laws, so very briefly, it would be simplest for me to refuse any copyright material up front (professionally shot wedding, school/grad, or other event photos, unless they obviously lie outside of the copyright laws. Again, this is meant as. usual venture only, not a high-volume operation.

graybalanced said:
Lettermanian said:

- Equipment. I am going to start out small, probably an Epson Perfection V39ii scanner to pair with my M2 Mac mini and the built-in software or the Silverfast software. For negs and slides a stand-alone unit (Kodak?). The more expensive Epson V600 scanner also has holders for 135mm negs and slides. I know what local companies are charging for their services so I would base my pricing on that but slightly lower, after ensuring I can produce good file quality.

Click to expand...

So the trick here is not “extra income” but “actual profit that makes the whole thing worth it.” Once you do your test runs, you are going to find that it is an extremely time-intensive and labor-intensive process. Time and labor are always prime drainers of profit. For this to be profitable enough to be worth doing, you are going to have to work out a very efficient production process, and as automated as you can possible manage, that smooths out all the places that can cost you lots of time.

Understood, I have about 20 albums and many hundreds of my own pics, slides and negatives to try it out on before I think about moving forward

graybalanced said:
It’s not hard to load up a bunch of film into holders, close the lid, and press Scan. But what can take up a disproportionate amount of your time is maintaining consistency, and handling or retouching individual difficult originals with different problems.

Consistency means are you going to be able to hand the clients 1000 images that look uniformly great, even if…the exposures of originals varied widely, some were dirty or scratched, some are faded or alarmingly color-shifted due to age…how much will you promise to fix defects, and can you do that quickly? Just a few hours of unanticipated extra handling will kill all your profit for a job, unless your rates are appropriately high.

Right, at the outset I was thinking of only providing a very basic conversion service, without getting too involved in clean-up work.

graybalanced said:
If you fall into the low-margin trap of wanting to compete on price, then you will, like most businesses, experience unrelenting pressure to deliver good enough results in a short enough amount of time in order to not lose money at a low price point, and that may be difficult, if the labs in your area worked out very efficient bulk scan workflows a long time ago and you are just getting started and your process requires too much manual labor.

Understood, yet where I live there is a demand for (very) small service providers, handy persons, neighbourhood recommendations, etc, so I think there could be viability to providing affordable service on a small scale relative to a small area.

graybalanced said:
You will be spending hundreds, or maybe thousands, of hours in your room with your scanner and computer, and what you charge had better make it worth it for not being able to spend those thousands of hours at summer baseball games, playing with the kids, fishing at the lake, or quality time with your spouse. The time demands of scanning are unbelieveable.

I understand the intent here, but it is not an accurate portrayal of our family's particular situation. Suffice to say I would have 2-4 hours a day to dedicate to this venture, without sacrificing other, more important time.

graybalanced said:
If instead you compete on value and results instead of low price, you should be able to charge a higher margin to cover the extra time needed to handle the outliers, and justify the higher price by delivering a product that is better than the competition. But then you must also market that difference to show potential clients why you cost a little more.

You are going to have to test and refine to get your workflow down. For example, you get advice here that it would be far faster to use a camera stand than a scanner. And yes that can be true. But there is a tradeoff. Another reply complained about the amount of dust and scratches to be cleaned up. Well, if you use a scanner, features like Digital ICE do a great job of reducing dust and scratches and color shifts that you save hundreds of hours of retouching. So which would save your more time, a camera stand that digitizes fast but you have to clean up every image later by hand, or a scanner that takes longer to do each frame but the scanner hardware supports Digital ICE so you save hundreds of hours retouching? You’re going to have to test which one is really faster for you.

Yes, I would have to see how that works on my own images first.

graybalanced said:
Another question is if you intend to deliver pixels, or value. Pixels means the client just gets 1000 files that they will never have time to organize and they do not even know where to start with tagging them, so the digital files will be the same as the disorganized boxes of random prints and film except now in digital form…their real problem was never really solved. If you intend to deliver value, then you are offering to work with them to organize and tag their photos with keywords, locations, and names that are significant for that family. Of course this is more work, but it also has the potential for additional services with the opportunity of additional profit, if you are charging properly. Some of the mom-and-pop digitization services in my area have wisely gone down that path.

I have thought about this too, as time and organization services are possibly of more value than masses of unorganized files.

graybalanced said:
I have digitized thousands of my family’s images with a nice scanner and yet, I absolutely do not want to go into business doing it. Because as someone else posted, scanning thousands of images is a largely boring, repetitive, numbing chore. I can barely motivate myself to do it for photos our family will love and cherish, I do not have the patience to go through this grind for anyone else. They would have to offer an unusually large check for me to even consider doing it for them.

Valuable insight, but I will have to find out for myself, since I want to do it with my own files firs anyway. Again, this is not meant to be a high-volume, commercial venture at all.

DMKAlex · Aug 23, 2023

How are you going to advertise your service?

Today, people search the web for everything. You're going to need a well designed website. Then you're going need to pay google search so your site is on the top 3 returned result.

You may want to research the cost of that and see if your business plan has any budget for them.

I recall hearing some company advertise on radio offering this kind of service.

I also wonder how big this market is after 20+ years of digitalization. In the very early days (around year 2000) I purchased a flatbed scanner and a film scanner to convert my portfolio into digital media. I sold the film scanner early on. I kept the flatbed for general office use.

Overrank · Aug 23, 2023

Lettermanian said:
Not too old to learn said:

You need to calibrate the scanner for color accuracy of output files.

What colop space will the output files be in; sRGB, Adobe RGB etc.?

Click to expand...

sRGB, and I would use my own old pics and negs/slides to tweak my settings before deciding if I will go ahead with others' images.

If you want colour accuracy then a IT-8 target is probably the way to go. You can get them for prints and slides (not negatives)

Overrank · Aug 23, 2023

Als9 consider that if someone wants to digitise a lot of prints they can rent (for about £80 for three days) an Epson FF-680W. If they are organised they will be able to scan all their prints within 3 days (it does something like 30 prints a minute, front and back). It is by far the fastest way to scan prints in a consumer setting

sybersitizen · Aug 23, 2023

Lettermanian said:
sybersitizen said:

Lettermanian said:

I am in the process of purchasing the necessary equipment (flatbed scanner mainly), and will try this out first on my own photos/negs/slides etc before offering services to customers ... I am going to start out small, probably an Epson Perfection V39ii scanner to pair with my M2 Mac mini and the built-in software or the Silverfast software. For negs and slides a stand-alone unit (Kodak?). The more expensive Epson V600 scanner also has holders for 135mm negs and slides. I know what local companies are charging for their services so I would base my pricing on that but slightly lower, after ensuring I can produce good file quality.

Click to expand...

Before you think about pricing, or anything else that was mentioned, digitize a few dozen or a few hundred of your own prints, negatives and slides. See what kind of gear and what expenditure of time it takes to get results that satisfy you. Then you can consider how to generate income from it.

Click to expand...

Yes, that is exactly the plan as indicated in my post.

But you're already thinking about pricing, contracts, copyright, and privacy concerns. Those things are secondary until you know how well and how quickly you can do the work.

Lettermanian · Aug 23, 2023

DMKAlex said:
How are you going to advertise your service?

Today, people search the web for everything. You're going to need a well designed website. Then you're going need to pay google search so your site is on the top 3 returned result.

You may want to research the cost of that and see if your business plan has any budget for them.

I recall hearing some company advertise on radio offering this kind of service.

I also wonder how big this market is after 20+ years of digitalization. In the very early days (around year 2000) I purchased a flatbed scanner and a film scanner to convert my portfolio into digital media. I sold the film scanner early on. I kept the flatbed for general office use.

Honestly the idea is simply to "advertise" by word-of-mouth and on our neighbourhood FB groups. As I said in other responses, I'm not looking to grow this into a major business or source of income. I believe there is a (small) market here where we live for such a service, but as you suggest it likely will have a limited lifespan (if any).

-- "Be yourself. No one can say you're doing it wrong." -Charles M. Schulz
"I love mankind... it's PEOPLE I can't stand!!" - Linus

Lettermanian · Aug 23, 2023

sybersitizen said:
Lettermanian said:

sybersitizen said:

Lettermanian said:

I am in the process of purchasing the necessary equipment (flatbed scanner mainly), and will try this out first on my own photos/negs/slides etc before offering services to customers ... I am going to start out small, probably an Epson Perfection V39ii scanner to pair with my M2 Mac mini and the built-in software or the Silverfast software. For negs and slides a stand-alone unit (Kodak?). The more expensive Epson V600 scanner also has holders for 135mm negs and slides. I know what local companies are charging for their services so I would base my pricing on that but slightly lower, after ensuring I can produce good file quality.

Click to expand...

Before you think about pricing, or anything else that was mentioned, digitize a few dozen or a few hundred of your own prints, negatives and slides. See what kind of gear and what expenditure of time it takes to get results that satisfy you. Then you can consider how to generate income from it.

Click to expand...

Yes, that is exactly the plan as indicated in my post.

Click to expand...

But you're already thinking about pricing, contracts, copyright, and privacy concerns. Those things are secondary until you know how well and how quickly you can do the work.

Those are all related issues that I'd like to think about well beforehand; I don't see any problem with asking ahead of time about such things :-|

Lettermanian · Aug 23, 2023

PhotoMac503 said:
You say you want your kids to have experience in small business, but I read this as you exploiting them as if you had them work 50 hours a week in a family run pizza parlor.

This work is extremely tedious and kids have short attention spans. I doubt the time spent training them would be a good ROI for you. At worse, they would be sitting at a computer (which is not good for the body) when they should be active with friends - things that will help their development. Doing dad's work may lead to resentment..

I also wonder why you are no longer doing the lawn and yard care. That's better for kids as they can generally sweep and rake safely, and get some physical activity.

At minimum, figure out why you gave up the lawn business to understand problems you may encounter with any new venture.

I never recommend these mass digitizing projects. As others have said they are tedious and my time is too valuable.

I've scanned about 10% of my film images and that's enough. Viewing also takes time.

With respect, the narrative you created in the first sentence above is egregiously far from my meaning and intent. If you truly wish to have more understanding, please ask questions of the original author first before you assign your meaning and assumptions to his words.

DMKAlex · Aug 25, 2023

Lettermanian said:
DMKAlex said:

How are you going to advertise your service?

Today, people search the web for everything. You're going to need a well designed website. Then you're going need to pay google search so your site is on the top 3 returned result.

You may want to research the cost of that and see if your business plan has any budget for them.

I recall hearing some company advertise on radio offering this kind of service.

I also wonder how big this market is after 20+ years of digitalization. In the very early days (around year 2000) I purchased a flatbed scanner and a film scanner to convert my portfolio into digital media. I sold the film scanner early on. I kept the flatbed for general office use.

Click to expand...

Honestly the idea is simply to "advertise" by word-of-mouth and on our neighbourhood FB groups. As I said in other responses, I'm not looking to grow this into a major business or source of income. I believe there is a (small) market here where we live for such a service, but as you suggest it likely will have a limited lifespan (if any).

My point is, that boat had sailed. Those who were interested had done it long time ago. The rest are just happy snapping away with their iPhone.

justinwonnacott · Aug 27, 2023

Years ago I purchased 2 dedicated transparency scanners which quickly became obsolete and I never made my money back ......several flatbeds later with film adapters and all that jazz I have abandoned em all for shooting film with a full frame camera, transparency is easy and colour negative definitely not so. I have done this for dough rescuing c41 sheet film but I cannot imagine this process ever being a way to reliably earn money, Amateurs can get their film scanned for peanuts at camera stores. very very time consuming even shooting with a camera.

PhotoMac503 · Aug 28, 2023

Lettermanian said:
PhotoMac503 said:

You say you want your kids to have experience in small business, but I read this as you exploiting them as if you had them work 50 hours a week in a family run pizza parlor.

This work is extremely tedious and kids have short attention spans. I doubt the time spent training them would be a good ROI for you. At worse, they would be sitting at a computer (which is not good for the body) when they should be active with friends - things that will help their development. Doing dad's work may lead to resentment..

I also wonder why you are no longer doing the lawn and yard care. That's better for kids as they can generally sweep and rake safely, and get some physical activity.

At minimum, figure out why you gave up the lawn business to understand problems you may encounter with any new venture.

I never recommend these mass digitizing projects. As others have said they are tedious and my time is too valuable.

I've scanned about 10% of my film images and that's enough. Viewing also takes time.

Click to expand...

With respect, the narrative you created in the first sentence above is egregiously far from my meaning and intent. If you truly wish to have more understanding, please ask questions of the original author first before you assign your meaning and assumptions to his words.

--
"Be yourself. No one can say you're doing it wrong." -Charles M. Schulz
"I love mankind... it's PEOPLE I can't stand!!" - Linus

On the internet I never assume people will behave responsibly. We seldom see that IRL.

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Digitizing prints/negs/slides for extra income: insights?

Lettermanian

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Lettermanian

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DMKAlex

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Overrank

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Overrank

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sybersitizen

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Lettermanian

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Lettermanian

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Lettermanian

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DMKAlex

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justinwonnacott

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