Q: <strong>LEARN MORE ABOUT EVERPRESENTS AI PHILOSOPHY</strong>

Across all analog formats we use artificial intelligence as a support tool, not a substitute for human expertise. AI assists with stabilization, cleanup, and consistency, allowing our specialists to focus on judgment, quality control, and preservation decisions. We don’t apply the same approach to every format, and we don’t automate simply for speed. Slides demand different care than VHS tapes; audio requires different judgment than film. Each project is reviewed by people who understand the material , the era it came from, and the responsibility that comes with preserving it. Every order reflects the same philosophy: thoughtful technology, human oversight, and respect for the original.

Question 1

LEARN MORE ABOUT EVERPRESENTS AI PHILOSOPHY

Accepted Answer

Across all analog formats we use artificial intelligence as a support tool, not a substitute for human expertise. AI assists with stabilization, cleanup, and consistency, allowing our specialists to focus on judgment, quality control, and preservation decisions.

We don’t apply the same approach to every format, and we don’t automate simply for speed. Slides demand different care than VHS tapes; audio requires different judgment than film. Each project is reviewed by people who understand the material, the era it came from, and the responsibility that comes with preserving it.

Every order reflects the same philosophy: thoughtful technology, human oversight, and respect for the original.

Question 2

can you scan all slide formats?

Accepted Answer

It would make our slide scanning service redundant if you couldn’t! But all jokes aside, yes slides can be scanned. Whether you’re looking to digitize 35mm slides, 110 slides, 126 slides, 127 slides, stereo slides, or other non-standard slides, there are many companies out there that can help convert your slides to digital — EverPresent being one of them, of course. You can enquire for a quote here today.

Question 3

how much does it cost to scan slides?

Accepted Answer

We believe in total cost transparency. That’s why you can send us your materials for free with no commitment, and we’ll provide an estimate. Our technical experts are always happy to walk you through the technical options, so you know what we’re charging you for and why — and we can find the best option for your budget. Before you ask, yes, we do offer volume discounts. These are automatically applied to your quote.

Question 4

where can i convert 35mm slides to digital?

Accepted Answer

There are a range of companies that convert slides to digital, and we’d like to think we’d give any of them a run for their money. Plus, because we have over 100 stores across the US, it’s easy to find a store near you. You can find a list of all our locations here and track down your nearest stores. Our experts there will be happy to help with your slide-to-digital project.

Question 5

do i need to clean my slides to scan them?

Accepted Answer

If you’re planning to use a professional slide scanning service, you don’t need to clean your slides. They’ll do that part for you! If it was us, we’d use compressed air and a microfiber cloth to clean the slides before scanning. If you’re undertaking a DIY project, we recommend following the same approach. Be extremely careful, you don’t want to scratch the image. Oh, and don’t ever blow on the slide with your own breath. Trust us, it’s a bad idea.

All things being equal, slides tend to hold up better than other forms of old analog prints. Print photos tend to fade, deteriorate, and crease easily. Negatives tend to curl. Slides, between their sturdy film stock, cardboard mounts and closed containers, are most likely to be in pristine condition for the digitizing process. The exception is the surface of the film, where the slide emulsion tends to attract dust and a light film. For this reason, cleaning the slides before scanning is paramount. This assures that we don’t scan the bad stuff, and that our scanners stay clean so that your digital versions look great.

Question 6

can I choose which slides to scan?

Accepted Answer

There’s good news and bad news when it comes to slide selection. The good news is that slides were the dominion of good photographers and were relatively costly to make, so people tended to avoid unnecessary slide creation, and there wasn’t the duplicate phenomenon we encountered later with print photos. That said, there are still plenty of slides people may prefer not to scan, and it ultimately is a personal question whether the time spent to declutter slides is worth it. If you do take on this challenge, some equipment will help with selection before scanning. For 35mm slides, you might find a PanaVue device online for under $100 that allows you to insert slides into a magnifying device. Alternatively, old 35mm slide projectors can be found that will let you put enlargements on your wall. For non-standard slides, the options are less convenient, but a light table can help you view batches of slides conveniently. They’ll be small, but at least you won’t be holding them up to your overhead light in the kitchen.

Question 7

can i share my slide scans online? are the digitized slides high resolution?

Accepted Answer

Of course! We do not put any sort of copyright on our slide scans. You own them and they are yours to share as you please, be it on websites, Instagram, in articles you are publishing, in email attachments, or anywhere else. Our higher resolution slide scanning at 2000-4000 DPI is generally overkill for online viewing and will allow for excellent display, especially on phones and mobile applications. When we convert slides to digital, we can deliver our slide scans as .jpg files, which work fine on the web and are generally easiest for uploading and downloading. But some web developers prefer the .png technology for website content. If that’s your preference, we offer this feature – so just let us know when you submit your order online or visit our stores and we can export a set of .png type files for you. Lastly, you should know that the data appended to your files will flow through to most online photo-sharing applications. For example, if you choose to have us append metadata for face tags or dates or whatnot, you should be able to sort lists online quickly according to this data. Some sites will even allow geo-tags to populate your images on maps!

Question 8

why do slides that are not 35mm cost more to scan?

Accepted Answer

As 35mm slides were by far the most common slide produced, the converters and scanners developed for digitizing slides are more advanced and bring inherent efficiency. And, orders tend to be larger, which creates its own efficiency in our process. We pass this along to our clients in the form of lower pricing for our 35mm slide scanning service. All of the other slide formats must be transferred on slower equipment.

Question 9

what file type do i get back?

Accepted Answer

Our default is JPG files at 2,000 DPI. We also offer 4,000 DPI and beyond. Upgrades to .TIFF files are available and are preferred by some professional photographers, editors and institutional archivists. While this service is more profitable for EverPresent, we don’t push it for most clients, as it’s expensive and can bog down computers and software platforms not geared for archives of this size or sophistication. Keep in mind that we can also transfer slides to DVD or CD.

Question 10

do you restore my slides while scanning?

Accepted Answer

Yes. As discussed earlier, our default process addresses dust and surface blemishes. But after we do the initial scan, we do additional optimizations. Some are about image integrity, such as assuring clean crops and correct orientation. But we also do light image optimizations, with exposure fixing being the most applicable for slides. We also keep a lookout for common color issues, with shift in the magenta over time being the most common resolution issue with slides. For discerning clients, we offer advanced repair, retouching, and restoration services. If you’d like to learn more, please ask your consultant about this option.

Question 11

Will my slides get scanned in order?

Accepted Answer

100% yes. Almost all slide containers label each of the slots in numerical sequence. We start at 1 and go in order to the last slide. Even if you don’t think your carousels are in any kind of order, you never know who may have spent an hour or two sorting them once-upon-a-time.

We scan almost 100,000 images every week, and if we sent clients disorganized archives, we’d be exchanging one problem for another. When we transfer slides to digital, including when we transfer slides to DVD, we keep them organized. That starts, critically, with not asking you to remove your slides from their current housing. If you have slides in small boxes, carousels, binders or something else, we take them as is so that we can keep them in order. That’s the foundation of organization, with other options including:

Advanced Organizing: Our slide scanning service offers various advanced organizing options for your scanned slides, including highlighting, date-tagging, topic-tagging, geo-tagging, and face-tagging. These services are designed to make it easy to find photos you want in larger scanned archives. This is generally appropriate for archives of 3,000 or more images, and your consultant at EverPresent will make recommendations. You need not be prepared for this upfront.

Folders: All groupings that we receive get their own folders, whether it’s a carousel or a binder, or groups that you put together manually. We scan every slide in order, and then number the slide scans sequentially. So, for example, if you give us a slide box labeled “European Vacation 1975” there will be a folder titled similarly and each scan will be labeled “European Vacation 1975_01”…” European Vacation 1975_2”, etc. making it easy for you to know exactly where your media files are located.

Handwriting and Notes: If someone took the time to write notes on your slides, we are happy to preserve that work in digital format. We have the ability to manually transcribe written notes into the caption metadata of your digital scans.

Question 12

How are 35mm slides digitized?

Accepted Answer

We have a very high bar for our slide scanners. 35mm and other slide formats have a significant inherent level of detail, and it is critical to have a strong imaging element to get the full sharpness and color depth. This requires multiple different types of equipment for the different sorts of slides we see.
Second, let’s talk about the nuances of the scanners and the situations we need to accommodate when we transfer slides to digital:

Flatbed Slide Scanners: Flatbed scanners are the go-to solution for most of the non-standard slide formats we receive. We have a series of custom mounts, some of which we maintain via 3D printing, to allow us to get the perfect distance from the scanner glass for less common slides. We are using high-end Epson scanners for this purpose where we can go to 4,000 DPI and beyond if necessary. If you send us glass mounted slides, 3D stereo slides or similar, we are likely using our flatbed scanners. When we transfer a slide to digital format, we will also use flatbed scanners for the most common format, 35mm scans, when the slide mounts are damaged, curled or when the film positives must be removed from the mounts to get a good scan. These scanners cost ~$4,000 a piece.

Overhead Scanners: Overhead scanners refer to a sophisticated camera element that images the slides from above. It is relatively uncommon for us to use this scanning rig for slides, but there are exceptions, most commonly oversized transparencies. We built this rig in-house using Nikon imagine elements and it costs ~$20,000.

Tray Scanners: A tray scanner lets you put a series of a few dozen slides into a tray, which are then auto-fed into a high-end imaging element. The best machines for purpose were the converters made by Nikon. Fortunately, we have a huge supply of these devices and know how to maintain them, relying on 3D printing and expert handling. These machines are best leveraged for scanning 35mm slides in standard cardboard mounts. One of our tray feeding slide stations costs ~$15,000.

	EverPresent	LegacyBox	iMemories	ScanCafe	CVS, Walmart
Formats Handled	✅ Every Slide Format. 35mm slides, 126 slides, 127 slides, Super127 slides, 110 slides, Super35mm slides, Half frame slides, 1″x1″ slides, Stereo slides, Medium format slides	❌ Only 35mm and 126 slides advertised but will accept 35mm Half Frame, standard 127 and 110	❌ Only 35mm slides advertised; may accept others	✅ Common slide formats. 35mm, 126, 127, 110 slides, medium format slides	❌ 2″ x 2″ slides only. 35mm, Super 35mm, 110, 126, 127, Super127
Submission Requirements	✅ May submit as is, including albums, scrapbooks, carousels, frames, binders and more.	❌ DIY group by size. Does not accept images in any type of sleeve, carousel or box	❌ DIY group by size. Does not accept images in any type of sleeve, carousel or box	❌ Accepts carousels for a surcharge per carousel	❌ All slides must be loose.
Digitizing Upgrades	✅ Up to 4,000 DPI, two levels of AI and human driven enhancement and restoration upgrades, .tiff archival upgrade	❌ One size fits all	❌ AI enhancement upgrade	✅ High resolution; .TIFF archival upgrade	❌ One size fits all
Organizing Options	✅ Caption transcription, metadata tagging by date, topic, face, etc., PDF with OCR for documents	❌ Not available	❌ Not available	❌ Not available	❌ Not available

	EverPresent	LegacyBox	iMemories	ScanCafe	CVS, Walmart
Home Pickup	✅ Yes. Northeast, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, DC, Florida	❌ Not available	❌ Not available	❌ Not available	❌ Not available
Local Stores	✅ Yes. Over 130 local stores.	❌ Not available	❌ Not available	❌ Not available	✅ Local stores receive projects that are then shipped to Atlanta
Inbound Shipping Included	✅ Included	✅ Included	❌ Surcharge	❌ Surcharge	✅ Included
Flexible Shipping Approach	✅ Free labels to be used on any sized box	❌ Fully prepaid box; size limits	❌ Prepaid ship kit; size limits	✅ Prepaid ship kit or mail yourself	✅ Boxed and shipped for you at retail counter

	EverPresent	LegacyBox	iMemories	ScanCafe	CVS, Walmart
Inventory & Quotes	✅ Formats identified and counted for you	❌ You do the work	❌ You do the work	❌ You do the work	❌ You do the work
Order Approval & Payment	✅ Free quote provided, pay after approval	❌ Fully pre-pay before sending in your project	❌ Pre-pay for ship kit	✅ Pre-pay for ship kit OR 75% deposit based on DIY counts	❌ Fully pre-pay before sending in your project
Personalized Ordering Experience	✅ Choice of phone consultation or online self-service	❌ Online shopping cart	❌ Online shopping cart	✅ Online shopping cart with option to call first	❌ Online shopping cart
Digital Delivery Options	✅ Download and private cloud app free for 60 days	❌ Downloads not included in listed pricing	✅ Download and private cloud app free for 30 days	❌ Download from a .zip file via email or sign up for third-party hosting	❌ Available for 60 days via Google download

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Slide Scanning with Optional AI Enhancements

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A $50 service fee applies to all orders. This service fee provides for safe handling procedures including: intake, item coding, physical & digital storage, quality checks by senior technicians and packaging.

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