Mr Scan Help Page

• Quality of image – Please remember that your films/slides are most probably a few decades old so may have faded, collected dust or obtained scratch marks within this time. Our scanners and staff will offer the best possible digital image available from the material provided however they will not be able to provide a miracle modern day equivalent digital image as if it was taken yesterday. Some images will still have scratch/debit marks which were not possible to remove with a standard digital scan, some will have colour faded due to UV exposure, so will have colour “blotches” due to fading or mould. If you experience any of these then we recommend using a digital image restore service, we do offer minor image restores in house, however, if the task is larger then we recommend a local company who can restore any digital image to a very high standard. The average starting price for an image to be restored is around £25, simply drop us an email with your requirements and we will let you know if its something we can do or if it will be needed to be carried out by our restore guy. 

• Inverted Slides or Negatives – If your slides do not have a “view from this side” indicator then we will do the best we can to scan the slide the correct way around, however, we cannot guarantee this will be correct. If you need to ‘flip’ an images we have provided its a very simple task on most photo editing software packages, we recommend XNView (Link below). This also applies to other film based scanning such as negatives.

• Missing images – Sometimes our scanners may reject or miss certain images for many reasons such as, image contrast is too dark, out of focus, or debit on the film causing it to jam in the scanner. If you do notice that an image is missing from your order simply drop us a quick email to let us know and then if approved we will ask you to return the missing films for us to reattempt the scan, there is no guarantee that the scanner will pick it up second time through but we are always willing to try.

• Cropping – Our scanners will automatically crop every image, sometimes they may crop an image incorrectly, this is mainly due to poor image quality or bar code being unreadable. We do quality check all images however do not compare cropping with the original.

• Un-mounted or damaged slides –  We offer an additional service for slides which are no longer in their mounts or damaged, this is an extra charge on top of the scanning cost on each image. This charge covers us mounting your slide in a temporary mount and removing them after scanning – If your slides are mounted in very poor condition mounts then this charge may also apply if we can not scan your slide in its existing mount. 

• Dirty film –  We do not touch any films, we use air blowers to remove surface dust but if the films are fairly dirty or sticky we may not be able to remove this and it may be visible on the scans. We use top of the range scanners and digital ice software to reduce the amount of dust/scratch marks on the digital image but we can not 100% guarantee that all marks will be removed. Basically the better quality your originals and how they have been stored the better results you will get. Film causes static and attracts dust. Monochrome images tend to be slightly worse for this effect due to the digital ice software not being able to distinguish as well as with colour images. Most colour images come our without any noticeable marks, monochrome usually come of good too. We can attempt to remove this using our Photo Restore Service.

• Glass Mounted or plastic sleeves slides – If you want the best quality scanned image it is best that we scan slides without their glass or plastic sleeve protection, our scanners do scan very well with these type of mounted slides but usually best with it removed as there will be much less dust and focusing will be much sharper. If you wish to have your slides scanned without glass/sleeves then you need to remove the glass before sending them to us, we can not remove and remount the glass as part of our service. Any glass slides that are cracked will also need the glass removed prior to sending as this will be picked up on scanning. Glass mounted slides which are not standard size, i.e. home made glass mounts and are too large for our scanners have to be scanned using our custom made slide scanning service. If your mount is a standard manufactured mount then this should not pose a problem.

• Image Rotation –  With APS films and 35mm negatives we do not rotate the images, i.e. if a photo was taken with the camera sideways then the image will be shown in digital this way, this can simply be rotated using any standard photo software such as XNView, below.

• Image order – Due to the way we scan we cannot guarantee any pre-set orders of images, we will try stick to an obvious order where possible however there are many influences that can change this, for example with slide scanning we use multiple scanners, this keeps the prices down and speeds up completion. Different types/sizes of slides may need to go through different scanners, some images may need to be scanned again due to dirt levels or scanning incorrectly. Some slides may need to have their mounts repaired or replaced due to being too weak to go through our scanners. We advise that the best way to put images in a particular order is to rename/re-order the images in digital format when you receive them back from us, It’s a lot easier when you can see the full image on your PC screen. – If you specifically require your slides to be in an exact order please email or call us to discuss your requirements as this will need to be carried on by hand on an individual slide basis and will be charged at a much higher rate.

• Returned order of originals –  As noted above we cannot guarantee that we can keep your films is any particular order for their return to you, we will of course do the best we can to keep to any particular requests however due to the way our scanners operate it may not always be possible.

• Negative Film strips – We do not scan part film strips, each strip must be scanned in full. A minimum of two 35mm images per strip. Please also make sure that there is nothing stuck to your negatives such as label strips as there may be an additional charge to remove these.

• Unprocessed Film – We can not scan from any unprocessed film.

Compatibility of Mr Scan Media.

• USB Stick / SD Card / External Hard Drive – All drives are formatted to work with both PC and Mac platforms, this will also be the most compatible format for most TVs and games consoles. If you have a problem reading one of our devices then please check the following:

1. If possible try it in another computer or TV
2. Check in your TV or computer manual for advice
3. Update any firmware or software on your computer or TV to the latest specification. We are not responsible for any issues regarding firmware upgrades.
4. Contact us for a return where the device will be tested and if found faulty will be replaced.

All our devices are fully tested before we hand them over, however sometimes they can get corrupted by static build up or faulty USB ports, we always recommend backing up all data from devices to various locations as soon as you receive them.

• CD/DVDs – All our discs are checked for errors before hand over. Our discs are written in a compatible format for most modern PCs and Macs that have CD/DVD drives and also DVD players that can read DVD-+R discs. 

• Using your Device – We are not responsible for the set up of your TV or computer and can offer no technical support.

Recommended Software Downloads
	Images – XNView We highly recommend XNView for viewing, renaming, adjusting, rotating and flipping your images.  it’s free for home use.
	Video – VLC Media Player For playing video files and DVDs on your computer we recommend that you download a free media player called VLC Media player (click cone image for download)

Please note: the above software is not supplied by Mr Scan ltd, we can offer no technical support, please do not call us regarding any issues you may have using the software, please contact the software company directly.