Welcome to Memories Forever

MEMORIES FOREVER is a photo scanning service, located in Southeast Missouri. Our mission is to scan your old photos, digitizing and preserving them for the future. Digitized pictures can be used in countless ways, including the use of digital frames, keeping some on your smart phone for easy access, using as a wallpaper on your PC or tablet.  The list goes on and on.

Your paper-based photos are continually fading away and discoloring, even if they are stored away from the light. Time does this. As well, the paper they are printed on may deteriorate. Saving your photos as digitized will relieve you from the concern of deterioration.

Old pictures are family treasures. Most people have dozens of photo albums, or shoeboxes full of photos that haven’t been looked at for many years now. Digitizing your photos with 

MEMORIES FOREVER scanning service will enable you to share these old photos with family by email, text, or social media. They will be so easy to share!

MEMORIES FOREVER will provide you with a flash drive containing your digitized photos. It is highly recommended that you also back these up to at least one cloud service. There are many such cloud services to choose from, and that decision is yours. However, if you ever lose the flash drive, or have a home disaster that destroys your PC, you will have peace of mind knowing that your photos are safe in the cloud service.

With MEMORIES FOREVER, the scanning and digitizing is completed in your local area. There is no risk of sending your photos to a lab thousands of miles away, spending extra money for shipments, worrying whether your photos are safe, or will they be returned to you as promised, or if they are being kept confidential. All of these concerns are eliminated by using a local scanning service. 

• You organize your photographs – more detail in “How to Organize”
• Contact us for an appointment to meet and provide your organized photos; pay 50% deposit and receive your customized Order Agreement
• We will scan and transfer your original photos to a USB Flash Drive Memory Stick.
• An estimated delivery date will be determined. The average turnaround time is 3 weeks. If additional time is needed to complete your project, we will be in contact with you to keep you informed.
• We will contact you for delivery of your original photos and the flash drive containing your scanned images. We will use the scan counter within our equipment to determine the exact amount scans made, and therefore the Balance Due, and communicate that amount to you.
• We will meet at the designated place and time to make delivery and collect the Balance Due.

HOW TO ORGANIZE PHOTOGRAPHS

• Remove your photos from albums
• Sort photos by person, event, date, whatever category you would like; Also, please sort by size to make the process faster
• OR you can simply sort by size, then you can create your own folders later and simply drag and drop the photos to their respective folders (this is probably the fastest method)
• Label your groupings by using index cards to separate the groupings, or place the groupings in resealable bags that are labeled on the outside
• The photos will be kept in the same order in which we receive them
• DO NOT USE STICKY TABS OR TAPE OR ANYTHING THAT HAS ADHESIVE

GETTING YOUR PHOTOS READY

• Sort by size and groups
• Writings on the backs of the photos will also be scanned for you. If you choose to make new notes on the back, be sure to only use a photo safe pen. Be sure not to press too hard, and make certain to let dry completely before pacing with other photos.
• We can scan any size picture 8 x 10 or smaller, including wallet size. At this time we do not scan panoramic pictures, slides, or negatives.
• Small (wallet-size or smaller), fragile, or wrinkled photos are scanned separately. Please group these photos together, separately from the others. These will need specific handling to preserve the original photos.
• Basic image enhancement is included. This enhancement adjusts the brightness, contrast, and saturation of your scanned photos. It improves the look of most photos; however, some photos are resistant to this software. You will receive both the original and the enhanced version. It is your decision to use either or both scanned images.
• Photos must be dust-free, clean, and have no sticky residue. Some older photo albums used sticky pages to hold the photos in place. Even older albums used picture corners that used a sticky adhesion to the page. Be certain there is no sticky residue on any of your pictures to be scanned. The result of allowing even one could cause permanent damage to the scanning equipment, and, therefore cost you hundreds of dollars to repair or replace the equipment owned by MEMORIES FOREVER. 

DPI – WHICH SHOULD YOU CHOOSE?

• Selecting the right resolution depends on what you plan to do with the scans. Typically, nearly all your photos will be printed at 300 dpi. So, a scan at 300 dpi is an exact copy of the image. For nearly all your uses, 300 dpi is what you will want and use. This will do fine for reprints and even for one size larger reprints.
• If you plan to make several enlargements, or to make personalized gifts or photo books, you will probably want to consider 600 dpi.
• 1200 dpi is for those photos that are very small (wallet-size, or smaller than 3x5). You might also consider 1200 dpi for photos that will be enlarged several times larger, or for photos that you are certain you will want to crop and only use a small portion of the original photo. 

300dpi          50¢ each for less than 100 photos                           $5.00 minimum

                     $10.00 per 100 photos                                             100-999 photos

                     $ 9.00 per 100 photos                                              1,000-2,999 photos

                     $ 8.00 per 100 photos                                              3,000 + photos

600dpi          $18.00 per 100 photos                                             $18.00 minimum

1200dpi        $25.00 per 100 photos                                             $25.00 minimum

Flatbed Scanning $1.00 each scan

Fragile items or photos on very heavy paper (almost like cardboard) will be scanned on a flatbed scanner, rather than the photo scanning equipment used for standard photos.

We accept payment by check, cash, or PayPal. You can use your credit card with PayPal. A 50% deposit is required at the beginning of your project. The balance is due when the flash thumb drive(s) and your original photos are returned to you.

Prefer to work in small batches? We will adjust the rates once you have achieved each milestone for pricing. For example:

          You have contracted with us for 3 separate projects over several months

          First project             300 photos                           Total cost $30.00

          Second project        400 photos                           Total cost $40.00

          Third project            400 photos                           Total cost $36.00

                      Total for all 1,100 photos                                        $106.00

If all 1,100 photos had been in one

project, your total would have been                                                $99.00

Referral Discount – If you refer someone to use our service, and that person tells us at time of first contact that they were referred by you, we will honor you with a 10% discount on your next project.