Photo scanning? What, that’s a thing now? Have you done it already? If not hopefully this handy guide will help.

Digitising, digitalising, making digital, scanning, replicating, converting to digital. These are some of the terms our customers are searching for before finding us.

Depending on how old you are, you will either have old photos of your own, or you won’t. Though even if you never had the joy of taking “proper” photos, on film, and waiting for them to come back from the developers, there is likely a dusty old box of photos somewhere in your house, loft or storage, with photos of your parents and grandparents.

What do people do with them? What have you done with yours?

Thing is…it’s been OK up until now. The people that took those first ones are largely no longer with us. And they got passed down to the next generation. But now, that generation is looking to pass them down. And that means us.

Is our service for you?

Honestly? We’re going to say no.

It’s for the generations to come, family members not yet even born. And one day they're going to thank you. For sharing a glimpse into the world as it was. In all is glimmering simplicity.

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We’re yet to meet someone who wouldn’t love to have digital copies of all their old print photos - maybe because they want to share them, maybe they want to keep them safe and protect them from damage or fading, or maybe simply so they can tick it off the list - once it’s done it’s done, no more worrying.

Vintage Photo Lab was founded in 2012 when Ed was trying to make a photo book for his gran and he was struggling with the scanning. Assuming there was someone who could help with this he looked up a service, only to find, there weren’t many decent options for this. Live in America, no problem. They have a plethora of options, companies and services, but here; tumbleweed.

We quickly learned that no two sets of family photos are the same. Hence the need for an element of bespoke service. Not "charge you 10 times normal cost bespoke”, just "tailor made bespoke”. Or in fact "we know what you have might be in a mess and feel impossible to tackle but we do this all the time bespoke".

Call us people pleasers, but we wanted to build an effortless service where you simply place order and we do the rest. So we did. Home courier collection and return. No annoying trips to the post office. We send you everything you need; shipping bag as standard, shipping boxes if you need something larger. Labels posted to you. No worries about trusting your photos with a courier either, pop the Apple AirTag that we send you with your label, in your box and we can track your photos in real time on their way to us. Live near us in Marlow (Bucks) or in London M25? Our very own driver will come to your house and collect. Bespoke, you see. But also free of charge.

We then digitise every single photo, photo album, negative or slide that you have conjured up to send us. All ordered in the batches you send them, kept in the order they were sent, and easily filed into computer folders ready for you do do something useful with them.

We can also help you copy them into Apple Photos, or Google Photos so you can access them on your phone, tablet, or TV, print new compilation photo books, or just share them (finally) with people who haven’t been able to see them because they couldn’t get to you loft to look at them with their own eyes.

The  main reason people use our service is to preserve those old printed photos, once and for all, and to know that those precious memories will live on through the generations, enjoyed by descendants, even and maybe especially, the ones not born yet.

But we also help customers during divorce when only one person can keep the original photos. Both can now have a digital copy and you can toss a coin for who gets the originals.

Photo albums are wonderful. They’re literally  snapshots of a time i n your family history where someone took the time to create this collection of memories. But there’s only one copy. No worry – we can digitise the entire album, page by page, retaining the composition and warmth of the original so both can keep those memories forever. We can even help you print new physical copies if you want something to hold or put on your shelf.

There are something like 3 billion undigitised printed photos in the UK, and it’s our mission to see them all preserved for posterity. We’re delighted to be playing our part in helping families protect and share their old memories with the service we run.

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