Reasons Professional Digitising Beats DIY Scanning for Old Photos

Do you have boxes of old photographs you want to move online? Perhaps you have shelves of precious memories and aren’t sure where to begin. Digitising old photos is crucial to preserve them for future generations. But should you do it yourself, or trust a professional service like Mr Scan?

Although there are plenty of ‘DIY scanning’ tutorials online, a highly skilled digitalisation service will almost always provide better results. Here’s why:

1. Superior Quality Down to the Finest Detail

When you send your photos, negatives or slides to Mr Scan, they’re digitised using specialist high-resolution scanners. These aren’t the same flatbed scanners you can buy on the high street or the smartphone apps that rely on your camera. They’re designed to capture every detail.

Our professional equipment can:

• Capture extremely high DPI (dots per inch), revealing details invisible to the naked eye.
• Produce true-to-life colours, even from faded originals.
• Remove dust, scratches, and blemishes during the scanning process.
• Handle all formats, from 35mm negatives and slides to APS films and instamatic photographs.

Even with a decent home scanner, you can’t match the dynamic range, sharpness and tonal accuracy you get from a professional setup. 

2. Restoration and Colour Correction You Can’t Get at Home

One of the biggest advantages of using a service like Mr Scan is the restoration work that’s carried out as part of the digitisation process. Your old photographs likely suffer from:

• Fading colours.
• Yellowing from age.
• Creases, dust spots, and scratches.

We don’t just scan your photos: we enhance them. Using industry-grade software, our team adjusts exposure, corrects colour casts and restores vibrancy, giving your images a new lease of life while staying true to the original look.

3. Irreplaceable Photos Handled with the Utmost Care

Older prints and negatives are often fragile. Handling them incorrectly can lead to irreversible damage; this is something we see all too often when people attempt DIY scanning.

At Mr Scan, we treat every single item with archival care:

• Wearing gloves to prevent oils from hands transferring to the image.
• Using non-abrasive cleaning methods to remove dust and debris before scanning.
• Ensuring each item is kept in order, so your collection stays organised.

We’ve handled everything from century-old prints to delicate 8mm cinefilm. We know how to get them safely from physical form to digital format without harm.

4. We Handle More Than Just Photos

Along with digitising old photos, we can also preserve all kinds of analogue memories:

• Photo scanning and photo printing
• Video conversion – VHS, Betamax, camcorder tapes
• 35mm film and slide scanning
• APS film scanning
• 8mm and Super 8 cinefilm digital capture
• Instamatic photo scanning

That means you can bring your entire family archive, from printed albums to forgotten video tapes. All can be converted to high-quality digital files.

5. Save Yourself Hours of Time 

Digitising a large photo collection at home is incredibly time-consuming. You’ll need to manually scan each image and then crop, rotate, and adjust it. It involves backing everything up. If you have hundreds, or thousands, of photos, this can take weeks or even months!

When you use Mr Scan, we do all the work for you. We’ll return your original items alongside your fully digitised collection, ready to view, share, and store without you worrying about anything. 

6. Images Saved in the Proper File Formats 

Professional digitisation doesn’t just mean better images: it also means better file formats. At Mr Scan, we provide files in convenient and archival-quality versions.

We also offer guidance on safe long-term storage, whether that’s on a USB drive, external hard drive, or in the cloud. Many DIY scanners save only in compressed formats, which can lead to loss of quality over time.

7. Enjoy Peace of Mind

Perhaps the most important reason to choose a professional service is peace of mind. You’re trusting us with your most precious memories – and we take that responsibility seriously. We’re received five-star reviews from hundreds of customers and have been rated ‘Outstanding’ by the FreeIndex. 

Unlike a home project where you might make mistakes along the way, we follow proven processes to ensure every photo is captured and preserved perfectly.

8. When Professional Digitising Makes the Most Sense

While anyone can benefit from professional digitising, it’s especially valuable if:

• You have a vast collection.
• Your originals are fragile or damaged.
• You want to restore and enhance faded images.
• You have multiple types of media to digitise.
• You need archival-quality results for long-term preservation.

Preserve Your Memories the Right Way

DIY scanning might seem cheaper at first glance, but the cost in time, effort and quality can be far greater. At the end of the day, your old photographs are too important to risk.

With Mr Scan, you enjoy:

• High-resolution digitising for every format.
• Professional restoration and colour correction.
• Safe handling of every original.
• Fast, convenient service with no stress.

Don’t wait until it’s too late – contact Mr Scan today to start preserving your history.