FAQ

Your memories are getting older by the minute, fading, deteriorating, and getting scratched, bent, moldy or even lost. There is no degradation with digital images, no matter how many times they’re copied or reproduced. Instead of shoe boxes, your priceless memories are preserved in portable formats which can last for decades. Stored on one of these handy formats, in an emergency your entire family photo history can be easily accessed and saved from harm. Digitized pictures can also be emailed and shared with family and friends all over the world, in addition to being creatively compiled into priceless photo memory books and an infinite variety of meaningful, economic family gifts.

For photo print-to-digital, original prints may range in size from 2 in. x 2.5″ to 8.5″x 12″. For larger images such as portraits or works of art, we’ll capture them with a professional digital camera and convert them to the same format as your other digitized photographs.

At times other companies take weeks or months, along with requiring your precious pictures to be either dropped-off or shipped to various facilities all over the world. With digital4keeps you receive your scans instantly at the conclusion of your appointment (if on-site). No waiting – assuming no technical difficulties. The option of mailing, or delivering your treasures are an option as well.

Yes we do. To benefit both you, and digital4keeps, we encourage you to take advantage of our free 30 minute consultation. During that consultation, we will be able to learn about what type of project you have in mind, the scope and number of items you wish to have scanned and be able to provide you a quote for the services you are looking for.

We often scan 300 – 400 pictures per hour. The number varies from client to client, depending upon the fragility of some photos and requests for photo cropping and advanced correction (cracks in pictures, etc.). In most cases our normal high-speed red eye correction and simple photo restoration solve most issues. Per-hour quantity can also be impacted by your requests for your technician to remove and replace pictures from existing photo albums, which must be done with utmost care. If possible, we suggest removing your photos from albums beforehand – but if that’s not feasible we’ll be happy to do it for you and afterward replace the pictures back where they were.

We prefer to scan to a high quality compressed jpeg format because jpeg is compatible with virtually every image viewing and editing software available. Being compressed, images take much less time to be processed by computers and other devices. Tiff format is also available.

CD’s typically hold a maximum of about 700 megabytes of information, while a DVD usually holds a maximum of 4 gigabytes. Usually a cd can hold approximately 300 – 1000 images, while a DVD is capable of holding thousands of images. The choice is yours, but personally we prefer high quality DVD’s or flash drives (will work in computers, laptops and tablets that do not have a CD/DVD Drive)For reference, comparatively, a 16 gigabyte flash drive holds four times the amount of a DVD.

Other companies may require your photos and documents dropped-off or mailed away to a facility, they may even be re-shipped overseas without you knowing it to scanning factories in countries like India or the Philippines, this is not so with us. With digital4keeps services, your original photographs and documents will never leave your home or office. However if you wish us to take them to our office located in Orange County and complete processing there we will return them to your home within a short time completely digitized.

By request we routinely do simple color correction and restoration. Further advanced corrections can take considerable amounts of time. We’re happy to do undertake the corrections, and we’ll let you be the judge of how much time to spend on each damaged photo.

For destinations in outside Orange County, our minimum is three hours. Should your services be completed in less time than the minimum number of hours, you will still be charged for the full minimum. What about additional charges? A travel charge will be assessed ranging between $100 to $150 depending upon distance and accessibility. Charges for travel will be determined and discussed with you prior to scheduling a digital4keeps services appointment.

As we’re sure you understand our service time cannot pause because you may become otherwise disposed or distracted. In order to get the most from your time with our technician, we suggest you plan ahead in order that your appointment is not interrupted.

No. Our self-contained scanning stations usually take only about twenty minutes to set-up. All we need is a quiet, well-lit and well-ventilated indoor area, no less than 12′ by 10′ in diameter. Unless you’re in a recognized business structure or complex with direct access to your office by working elevators, the area must be in an easily accessible location on the first floor. We need a working ac power outlet within fifteen feet of where the workstation is to be set-up. Because this is a detailed, artisan-like process and we are working with your precious documents, for everyone’s safety and utmost efficiency we require that young children, as well as any animals not housed in a cage be barred from access to the area for the duration of the appointment. Once set-up is complete, we will mutually acknowledge the time when the appointment begins.

Hardware: clients are given their choice of one storage medium – a 16 GB flash drive or a DVD – at no additional charge with each appointment. Additional storage units, digital picture frames, photo books and gift items will be charged at our negotiated price.

All payments are due and payable at the conclusion of each appointment, without exception. Digita4IKeeps accepts cash, personal checks drawn on local banks only and dated for the day of services rendered, PayPal and valid Visa, MasterCard, Discover cards.

For larger projects, a pricing plan may be negotiated.

Because we supply tangible products to you (flash drives, DVD’s, etc.) Our services are taxable, so our technician will add applicable sales tax to your total. If you schedule more than one appointment, all charges incurred must be paid at the conclusion of each appointment. Storage units (flash drives, CD’s, DVD’s, digital picture frames, etc.) will be rendered at the conclusion of each appointment after payment has been made.

Call our office during business hours (pacific) 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday.. We’ll answer your questions, ascertain where your home or office is located, reiterate our fees and schedule your appointment.

Yes, thank you for asking. We ask that all clients to give us 48 hours notice when needing to reschedule a booked appointment. Cancellations with less than 48 hours will be billed a $50.00 cancellation fee. We realize that life has a way of getting into our appointments and will work with you if you just give us a call.

Because there’s so many options and personalized details involved in these meaningful projects, we suggest that you call our office during business hours (pacific) 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday at (714) 814-1648 or leave a message anytime. We’re eager to answer all your questions and provide support guidance for these projects.

Please call our office during business hours (pacific) 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday at (714) 814-1648 or leave a message anytime. We’re eager to answer all your questions and explore how we can help your business.

We do not retain any images that we capture for longer than 30 days?

We do not sell our mailing list?

We do not disclose any financial information that we receive from our clients.

We focus on providing the highest quality digital services by delivering the safest, most affordable, hassle-free packages available anywhere. Simple flat-rate/inclusive pricing means you’ll always know the exact total price of our services before you commit to a purchase.

Our standard and most popular print-to-digital packages provide scanning of your original photographs at 300dpi, which has become the standard for prints. The vast majority of prints that exist today were printed at 300dpi or less, so scanning at higher dpi settings rarely yields better results. In fact, sometimes ultimate image quality can be compromised if lower dpi prints are scanned at higher dpi settings (extraneous, unwanted information can be amplified).

While standard 300dpi is the right choice for most photo collections because it consistently delivers excellent results, we recognize there are sometimes reasons to scan at higher dpi settings (up to 1200dpi). For those instances, we offer a “Gold” or “Platinum” option on all print packages. Despite the inference, neither package is necessarily “better” than the standard 300dpi package in terms of ultimate digital image quality. Quite simply, the only difference between the two package categories, and the standard, is that Gold packages are scanned at 400dpi, while Platinum packages are scanned at 600dpi.

So what is dpi and what’s the right choice? Dots per inch (dpi) is a term used to describe the size of a printed image on a physical medium (e.g. paper). Strictly speaking, it has nothing to do with digital image quality. However, the term is widely used interchangeably with the equivalent terms “samples per inch” (spi) and “pixels per inch”(ppi) which can influence digital image quality, as a measure of size (in pixels). Typically, imaging equipment manufacturers use dpi to indicate the final pixel size of a scanned image. For example, a 4 in. x 6 in. print scanned at 300dpi will produce an image 1200×1800 pixels in size. The same print scanned at 600dpi will produce an image 2400×3600 pixels in size.

So will the larger image files from a 600dpi scan (Platinum Pricing) produce better results for your photo collection? Not necessarily, for the reasons cited above, the additional pixels created will not necessarily increase image resolution or quality.

So why offer these package options? Because prints do vary and while 300dpi scans often deliver optimum results for the vast majority of prints, there are cases when higher dpi scans may be desired. Those include cases where the original prints are exceptionally sharp (perhaps shot at fast shutter speeds with a high quality lens) a higher dpi scan may resolve slightly more detail. Also, while 300dpi scans can produce acceptable quality enlargements, 600dpi produce more reliable results when enlarging to twice the original print size.

Bottom-line, we generally recommend our standard (300dpi) package, which has become the standard dpi for photo prints and consistently delivers the best results. For reprint enlargements 2x original size, or unusually sharp original prints, our Platinum (600dpi) option is recommended. Still can’t decide?

Once a dpi is selected, estimate the number of photos in the collection to be digitized (a stack of 100 photos is approximately 1 inch high). For example, to convert up to 500 photos at 300dpi, select our Standard 500 package. For 1000 photos at 600dpi, select our Standard 1000 package and indicate the Platinum option.

You can, however, we have the equipment, software and resources that you may not have. Scanning is a tedious process. In as little as a few hours you can have all your memories preserved, archived and ready to view. You most likely have better things to do with your time.

We use a variety of the latest, most-advanced, professional imaging technologies and systems available today. Our Kodak scanners are specially modified models supported by Kodak for dedicated print photograph scanning. Our experience shows both scanning solutions provide consistently excellent scans at all available settings. We maintain our scanners to ensure consistent results and frequently replace scanners prior to the end of their lifetime duty cycle. Following scanning, we can enhance each digital image. This process combines automated and manual techniques to resolve existing color, exposure, red-eye, highlights and contrast problems present in the original photos.

You’ll receive your original photos repackaged in a protective container, DVDs containing high-quality JPEG files, and optionally Text Note Archive image files (see below). You will also receive any other items ordered such as extra DVD copies and Index Prints. Our standard medium is DVD; if you require your images recorded on CD you can indicate that in your special instructions on your order. Approximately 3000 JPEG images files of 4 in. x 6 in. prints scanned at 300dpi can be recorded on a single DVD. The same 3000 images would require approximately 7 CDs.

While a number of newer TV DVD players are capable of displaying JPEG files from a DVD, or CD they can be slow, complicated to use, and lack the performance and flexibility of personal computers. Therefore, if you wish to share large photo collections to be viewed primarily on a DVD equipped TV, we recommend you ask about the TV DVD SlideShow Movie option.

Text Note Archiving is an optional service, available on all print-to-digital packages. If you purchase this option, we will scan both sides of your printed photographs and store any text notes or other marks from the reverse side of the print for archiving and informational purposes. The resulting image containing text will be associated with the photo image through sequential file names. For example, the reverse side Text Note image of photo image A000130 will be A000131. Only Text Note image files that contain content will be captured and saved, therefore the number of Text Note image files will only equal the number of photo image files if every original photo contains content on the reverse side.

An Index Print is a high-quality printed and bound album containing thumbnail images for all your photos. It is a handy reference for your photo collection when you are not near a computer and provides a quick and easy way to locate images.

All Digital4Keeps packages include high-quality JPEG files. We have the ability to scan in the TIFF format. Due to the significant size of most TIFF files, this option includes a portable, widely compatible mass USB storage device (for packages in excess of 250 images). TIFF (Tag Image File Format) is a leading commercial format often preferred by professionals for specific purposes and universal platform flexibility.

You may call us during business hours (9:00am-9:00pm PSTat 714-814-1648.You may also email us at info@Digital4Keeps.com or send us a fax at 856-809-9480.

We do lots of scanning for imaging and photography professionals, businesses, organizations and people just like you.