Do you save all your digital photos to a hard drive and put them in a box which you store in the loft, retrieving them every few years to look at again with only the people who are with you in the room at that time? Didn't think so. Just because that was the only option then, doesn't mean we can't move with the times now. There's 3 generations' worth of physical photos in most people's lofts/attics/garages. Treasured memories, stories untold, loved ones immortalised, snapshots of who we were and where we came from. Digitising it means you can share it with the others who were there at the time, no matter where they are today. And to ensure your family's history gets to live on to the next generation, even – especially – those not yet born.

You cannot begin to imagine the epic, often mind-boggling, assortment of photo collections we have made over the 10+ years we have been doing this. It started with relatively tidy shoeboxes, back when we only digitised loose photos. As our range of services have grown so have the collections we have made. We've seen entire slices of history plucked from the far-reaches of the UK. Sometimes unloaded in suitcases out the back of taxis, collected in Phileas Fogg worthy luggage trunks, in holdalls, moving boxes, shipping crates and everything in-between. This is not an invitation to out-bonkers anybody else so you'll be glad to know we have a nicely tried and tested system now. Throughout the UK we collect via overnight courier and send you everything you need for the collection, including an Apple AirTag (digital tracking device) so we can keep an eye on your photos in real time. For London and the M25, and within a 30 mile radius of our office in Marlow, Bucks, we have a driver collect in person, right from your doorstep. Until the next time...I think we've seen it all before.

Our service is available across the entire UK. For standard orders we use an overnight courier to collect your photos and send you everything you need for the collection. This includes an Apple Airtag which is a small digital tracker that means we can keep tabs on your photos in real time, as the make there was from you to us. If you live in London/M25 or within 30 miles of our office in Marlow, Bucks, we can offer free home collection by our very own driver.

This is the number one question we get asked. And clearly it's a very important one. The short answer is 'Yes'. We've been operating since 2012 and in that time haven't so much as had a single photo go missing. The reality is, we simply wouldn't have a business if we couldn't safeguard our customers' photos. And it's for that reason that the safety of your photos is the number one priority of what we do at Vintage Photo Lab. We never allow customers to send us photos using their own method or by post. We centralise all collections and returns, so we can manage what's coming in and going out on any given day. For UK collections we post you an Apple AirTag which sits in your box of photos on their journey from you to us. For London/M25 and 30 miles of our office in Marlow, Bucks we offer a free chauffeur collection by our very own driver.

Of course. We understand that photo collections are very unique and personal things. Sometimes photo collections being sent to us are gathered from different members of the family, different peoples' houses, or are simply from different eras and are not stored in one tidy collection. Anything that arrives to us in an obvious batch, or ordered in a particular way, will be kept in that order and in that batch. The digital copies you receive will be decipherable based on how the originals were packed, and the physical copies will be returned in the same order. Feel free to keep things organised by packing different batches of photos in envelopes or sandwich/zip-loc bags . If you opt to do this, you can also write a brief description of the contents which we will use to name your digital version.

There's no right or wrong answer here. There's pros and cons to each. 300dpi produces high quality scans which can be used to reproduce the physical print at its original size. If you scale any photo beyond its original dimensions you will experience degradation, leading to pixellation. 600dpi scans protect against this a little more than 300dpi scans. 600dpi files are much larger – some people don't like having lots of huge image files. Scanning at 600dpi can take up to nine times as long, hence the additional charge. We have some more information about this in our blog and if you are not sure, please just pick up the phone and you can speak to one of our experts who will advise you on the best option for your needs.

Customers usually fall into one of two camps here. You'll either have a smaller, more manageable order and it's likely you will count these so you know what you have. That's also why our services are broken into two: Fixed Price Services and Custom Order. Fixed Price orders include all our minimum order volumes (all costing £120.00) as well as some popular variations. e.g. 100 Loose Photos, 500 Loose Photos, 100 35mm Slides. Our Custom Order is for everything else and specifically if you have more than one media type, or a lot more than the minimum order. Our scanners will count for your photos as we process them and any additional billing is invoiced for upon completion. If you would like a ball-park quote to understand more precisely what your total order is likely to cost, we can provide a visual ball-park quote by you sending us some photos (using your smartphone) of what you need digitising.

This is a trick question (possibly straying into passive aggressive territory; apologies). If you haven't already, PLEASE DO NOT WRITE ON THE BACK OF YOUR PHOTOS. Old writing and annotations from years ago is fine but new ink has a tendency to come off the back of one photo, onto the front of the next which can leave marks, smudges and streaks. This is difficult to fix and can permanently damage your photos and also damage our scanners.

Don't worry, this is fairly common. Most photo collections have some form of holiday high jinks, youthful exuberance and a smattering of nudity. We certainly don't mind and have seen it all before. We're also too busy looking for dust streaks to pay much attention. If you're really concerned, please just get in touch.

Of course. UK courier collection and return is included in all our prices. As is local collection within 30 miles of our office in MArlow, and from within London and the M25. But if you would prefer to deliver them yourself, drop-off in-person is an option by appointment only. We are located in Marlow, Buckinghamshire. Get in touch to arrange a time and we will give you the full address details.

We can digitise photographs of any size. Our loose photo pricing includes photos up to A4 in size. Anything larger than this will be billed separately, as a flatbed scan (up to A3). For anything larger than A3 please get in touch for a quote. You don't need to put photos in any special order or batch them by size or colour.

Turnaround times can vary depending on how busy we are at the Lab. Typically, your photos will be scanned in 1–3 days of them arriving. If you are working to a tight deadline please get in touch and we will do our best to expedite your order.