For decades, photo slides were a great way to capture and share memories. These days, they’ve largely been replaced by digital photos and slideshows, yet you might still have old slides in shoeboxes, closets, and basements. Even worse, those memories could be fading.

With over 20 years of experience digitizing photo slides and other memories, Capture put together this guide to help you discover where to get slides made into photos near me. That way, you can turn old slides into easily viewable photographs or digital copies that will last forever. 

Keep reading to understand the slide conversion process, find a local or online service provider, prepare your slides for conversion, and how to make the best choice for your most precious memories. 

Jump to:

• Understanding the Conversion Process
• Finding a Service Provider
• Preparing Your Slides for Conversion
• What to Consider When Choosing a Service
• DIY Alternatives
• Conclusion

 

Understanding the Conversion Process

The photo slide conversion process scans your photo slides to turn them into print photos or digital images. This involves running the slide through a photo scanner that captures the image in high resolution and storing it in digital format. 

Then, you can use these images for print photos and share them over social media and email. You can even store them on USB flash drives, DVD copies, SD cards, and your computer, phone, or external hard drive.

Additionally, some slide scanning services will also offer color correction, glare removal, and other services to restore pictures from your slides. You can even use the newly digitized images or physical copies to create photo collage gift ideas, scrapbooks, and other creative projects. 

Finally, you will have different format options like TIFF or JPEG to choose the best option for your needs whether you plan on using photo editing software to enhance photos or simply using them for a digital slideshow. 

As you can see, photo slide scanning can be extremely beneficial not only for preserving your memories forever, but also for making them easier to share, edit, and enjoy. Now it’s important to discover “where to get slides made into photos near me.”

Finding a Service Provider

The first step toward finding a place to convert your old photo slides into photo prints and digital files is to learn what different options you might have in your area. These include local photo labs, specialty scanning services, retail chains, and online services. 

Local Photo Labs

Many towns have local photo labs that not only develop film, but scan photo slides or turn them into print photos and enlargements. You can usually find them by searching Google with “where to develop 35mm film” or other related inquiries. 

These locations offer personalized services and a friendly local atmosphere, but often charge a little more than chains or online services. Still, it can be a great option for slide scanning near me. 

Here are some local service providers that might be in your area:

• Phoenix Photo Lab in Phoenix, Arizona
• Underdog Film Lab in Oakland, California
• Mike’s Camera in Boulder, Colorado
• Darkside Film Lab in Bridgeport, Connecticut 
• Coastal Film Lab in Tampa, Florida
• Bellows Film Lab in Atlanta, Georgia
• Latitude in Chicago, Illinois
• Colortek in Boston, Massachusetts
• Picture Perfect Photo Lab in Albuquerque, New Mexico
• Bleeker Digital in New York, New York 
• Citizens Photo in Portland, Oregon
• Indie Photo in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Legacy Photo Lab in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas

Specialty Scanning Services

While less common than traditional photo labs, some major cities have specialty scanning services that offer slide transfer. Many of them also convert film reels, home movies, VHS tapes, and photo books into digital copies. 

While the pricing might be higher than retailers or online slide scanner services, the quality of these shops will probably be higher than a local photo lab that doesn’t specialize in this type of service. 

Not only that, but many of them can also create décor, canvas prints, or even put your photos on t-shirts, business cards, or coffee mugs, making them a great choice for personalized Christmas gifts or birthday photo gifts for him or her. 

Retail Chains

Many retail chains offer photo services including slide transfer to digital. Some options that still offer these types of services include Walmart, Walgreens, CVS Pharmacy, and Sam’s Club. Costco no longer offers in-store photo services, so you might have to find an alternative to Costco film if that is your local choice. 

Capture partners with several retailers including CVS, Walmart, and Sam’s Club to fulfill their slide transfer and digitization services, so you know you’re getting quality results and fast turnaround time if you choose these options. 

Retailers are unlikely to offer the personalized services of local options but can be an affordable and convenient choice. Plus, you will probably get good results as well. However, not every retail location offers local drop-off and pick-up, which could mean this isn’t a convenient option in your area. 

Online Services

There are tons of online photo scanning services that can convert 35mm slides to digital including Capture, LegacyBox, ScanCafe, and Kodak Digitizing. With these services, you will mail in your slide film, and they will digitize them before sending them back to you. 

 Online services are generally available everywhere in the U.S., making them a good choice if you don’t have any local shops in your area. Plus, they generally offer professional results as well as additional services like glare removal and color correction. Most will also be able to convert other media to digital. 

However, not all online services are equal, so it’s important that you read reviews and directly compare LegacyBox vs Capture vs ScanCafe, Kodak Digitizing, and any other options.

Preparing Your Slides for Conversion

Regardless of whether you choose a local shop, retailer, online store, or even scan your slide film yourself, it’s important to prepare your slides for photo scanning. That means organizing them and even sorting them by year or category and providing instructions for scanning. 

You should also label them, especially if the slide scanning provider you choose adds metadata or organizes the slides into folders or slideshows. Plus, when you get your original slides back, having them labeled will make it easier to use them in a slide projector.

However, while all this is important, the most important step is to make sure they are clean and undamaged. Having dusty or dirty slides will lead to poor-quality digital results, regardless of DPI resolution. Some providers will clean them for you but doing it yourself will still help you ensure the best quality results for every scanned image. 

What to Consider When Choosing a Service

Now you know that there are tons of different slide conversion services to choose from, so how do you determine which one is the best option? These are the most important factors you should keep in mind. 

Quality and Resolution

Consider the quality and resolution of the digital images, the type of files whether that’s TIFF or JPEG files, and, if you’re creating photo prints, the quality of photo paper and other materials. Most providers will tell you this type of information, but you should also check reviews to see if the results were high quality for other customers. 

Turnaround Time

Nobody likes waiting forever for their memories to be processed, so make sure you check the turnaround time of different options. Some, like Capture, can deliver your memories and original slides in less than 30 days while others take as long as 12 weeks or longer. This is an especially important consideration if you need the digital images or print photos for grandma birthday gifts, holiday presents, or other gifts. 

Cost

The prices for a photo scanning service can vary drastically, so to avoid overpaying try to compare the pricing for your specific order. Some charge a flat rate by the number of images while others have packages that include 50 or 100 slides. You’ll also want to see the prices for USB or DVD copies, shipping, cloud storage, and other add-ons. 

Privacy and Security

Your slides contain priceless memories, so you must choose a trustworthy photo conversion nearby. Some ScanCafe complaints point out that memories were sent all the way to India for processing, which can be extremely disheartening. Others offer security systems to ensure your memories are safe. For example, Capture has a multi-million dollar tracking and security to monitor your slides through every step and provide peace of mind for your memories. 

DIY Alternatives

If you don’t like any of the top film to digital conversion service providers in your area or online, then you might also consider doing it yourself. To do so, you’ll need a dedicated slide scanner or, possibly, a premium-quality flatbed photo scanner. 

These are generally somewhere between $150 and $500 for consumer quality and can provide decent results. However, the process can be very time-consuming because you have to scan each slide separately. 

There are also slide scanning mobile apps that will be fast and easy, but they rely on the quality of your phone’s camera, lighting, and other factors. Because of that, we don’t recommend using them as the quality is far below professional standards or a high-quality slide scanner. 

Conclusion

If you’re looking for, “Where to get slides made into photos near me” hopefully now you have a better idea of your options and how to choose the best provider to digitize slides locally. Make sure you check pricing, reviews, and resolution as well as above and beyond services like photo restoration. 

Capture offers top-quality results for 35mm, Super 35mm, 110, 126, 127, 127 Superslide, and 120/220 Medium Format slides with automatic upload to Google Photos. Plus, our state-of-the-art tracking and security system, first-ever touchless photo album scanning, and 30-day turnaround time are all the best in the industry. Click here to get started today!