Myths About Slide Scanning and Negative Scanning: I Will Scan It Myself

Myth: Scanning myself will be cheaper than using a service

Often, doing something yourself can be less expensive than hiring someone else to do the work for you. We believe that scanning prints, slides and negatives is one case where hiring the work out makes financial sense. Let's look at the real costs of a scanning project.

Item	Cost
Scanner	$300-$2000	Dedicated film scanners such as the Nikon V, 5000 ED or 9000 ED are best suited for this work. Flatbed scanners are less expensive but get questionable results. To work efficiently and get good results, some so-called "optional" accessories, such as a slide feeder, APS film adapter, and glass mounts for medium format film must be purchased as well, depending on the scanner. The accessories can add significantly to the cost of the scanner.
Lightbox	$30 - $100	Without a lightbox, work is much more difficult - even for simply organizing the film prior to scanning. This is true for slides and for negatives.
Film handling gloves	$10	You should not handle your films with bare hands. The dirt and oil on our skin can damage film in obvious (fingerprints) and non-obvious ways. Good cotton darkroom work gloves (or the fancier fitted versions) can avoid this damage to your films and give you better results from scanning.
Cleaning supplies	$5 per 100 slides or 50 negative strips	If you already have compressed, filtered air from a non-oil pump compressor available? Great, you can probably use it (if the compressor is conveniently located near your scanning station). Otherwise, you will need to buy cans of compressed air for blowing off loose dust, dirt, and hair from your films.
Software tools	$0 - $600	If you already have all the necessary software tools and computer and digital imaging skills, this might not cost you anything. Otherwise, you might need to buy software like Photoshop (~$600) or Photoshop Elements (~$100), various plugins such as the Digital ROC plugin for faded slides ($100) or Noise Ninja for grain/noise reduction ($35-$80). And you need to learn how to use the tools. This may require books or classes to really get the most out of the software.
Time	???	What is your time worth? Scanning can take very large amounts of time, no matter what the scanner manufacturers tell you. For larger projects, you should plan on using your free nights and weekends for months.

If you have a relatively small number of slides or negatives to scan (say less than 1000) then the costs of the scanner and other materials will exceed the cost of having Pixmonix do the work for you (even ignoring the value of your time).

If you have a large collection of images to scan, the value of your time is the determining factor. If you place any value on your time or if you want the overall scanning project to be done in days rather than weeks or months, then hiring out the scanning work makes sense.

Let's do the math:

Scanning 500 35mm slides
	Cost to do it yourself		Cost Through Pixmonix
Scanning	Scanner (Nikon V)	$500	$445 (500 slides * $0.89/slide, 4000 PPI scans)
	Lightbox	$50
	Gloves	$10
	Compressed Air	$25
DVDs (for archival storage)	$10		$10
Shipping	$0		$25 (round trip)
Total Cost	$595		$480
Difference in Cost			$115 (Pixmonix is less expensive)

In this example, using a service like Pixmonix is clearly less expensive. This analysis holds even when we ignore some of the costs detailed above - most critically, the value of your time and any software tools that you might need to purchase.

The conclusion is the same if you have a larger number of slides to scan. In this second example, we have suggested that you would buy a more expensive scanner and slide feeder for the effort. This additional up-front expense will greatly reduce the amount of time required and the frustration that you experience on the project. Alternatively, you could buy a less expensive scanner such as the Nikon V and spend more of your time on the project. If we place any value on your time, the overall cost of doing the work yourself will be similar.

Scanning 2000 35mm slides
	Cost to do it yourself		Cost Through Pixmonix
Scanning	Scanner (Nikon 5000ED with SF-210 slide feeder)	$1500	$1380 (2000 slides * $0.69/slide, 4000 PPI scans)
	Lightbox	$50
	Gloves	$10
	Compressed Air	$100
DVDs (for archival storage)	$40		$40
Shipping	$0		$50 (round trip)
Total Cost	$1700		$1470
Hours required for scanning (5-25 scans per hour)	80-400		0
Value of time at $7.25 / hour (Federal minimum wage)	$580-$2900		$0
Total Cost, including time	$2280-$4600		$1470
Difference in Cost, without time cost			$230 (Pixmonix is less expensive)
Difference in Cost including time costs			$810-$3130 (Pixmonix is less expensive)

Once again, in this example, the difference in cost is about $200, with Pixmonix being less expensive, even when we ignore the value of the time it will require to do the scanning work.

Scanning 2000 slides on a single scanner with a single computer for scanning and processing will take a long time. You should plan on this work taking from several dozen to many hundreds of hours, depending on the speed of your computer, the photo editing software that you have available, and your skill level with both scanning and photo editing software. If we estimate that your time is worth $7.25 per hour (the Federal minimum wage) and that you can produce between 5-25 scans per hour then this time doing the scanning may have a cost of $580-$2900. Your time is probably worth more than minimum wage! The difference in cost is $810-$3130, with Pixmonix being less expensive. Using Pixmonix instead of doing the scanning work yourself is starting to look very smart!

A similar analysis works for negative films. For negatives, however, the extra expense for the slide feeder included in the second example (approximately $500) is not required. This lowers the do-it-yourself cost. However, scanning negatives is very time consuming - even more than slides. Additionally, the post-scan processing for negatives tends to be more difficult (requiring more skill and more time). Again, if your time is valued, this makes using Pixmonix a less expensive alternative.

If you are scanning at 2000 PPI, as we recommend for many of our customers, the cost to do your scanning at Pixmonix is even lower.

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