Questions people ask us

Most of what families keep in boxes and closets. You don't need to know the names; a quick description of how each one looks is below each item.

Photos and paper

• Everyday prints: 4×6, 3½×5, and the square prints with wavy edges from the '60s and '70s.
• Fragile, curled or torn prints, Polaroids, and old studio photos on thick card. We scan these by hand on a flatbed scanner, never through a feeder.
• Photo albums, including the "magnetic" kind with sticky pages. We photograph the pages carefully rather than pulling photos out. That takes the most time of anything we do, so each album gets its own quote.

Slides and negatives

• 35mm slides: small squares in cardboard, plastic or glass frames, often in carousel trays or little yellow Kodak boxes.
• 35mm negatives: brown or orange strips with holes along both edges, usually in the envelope that came back with your prints. You may already have prints of these, so we'll look together at your visit.
• Smaller or unusual film, like tiny 110 negatives, square Instamatic 126 negatives, or wide medium-format strips: ask us.

Video tapes

• VHS: the standard full-size tape.
• VHS-C: a small camcorder tape that played in a regular VCR using an adapter.
• Smaller camcorder tapes, like Video8, Hi8 and Digital8 (about the size of an audio cassette) or MiniDV (even smaller), and S-VHS: ask us.

Audio

• Cassette tapes and microcassettes, including voice recordings and old answering-machine messages: ask us.

Prices are on the pricing page.

• Store-bought movies on tape or DVD. They're copyrighted, and most are copy-protected.
• Home movie film reels (8mm, Super 8 and 16mm), Betamax tapes, APS film cartridges, reel-to-reel audio, records, and old floppy disks or memory cards aren't something we offer right now.

If you have any of these, we're happy to point you to a specialist.

Don't worry about it. Bring everything out at your visit and we'll sort it together, tell you what each item is, and exactly what we can do with it.

If you're curious, here's what the most common ones look like:

Drawn to scale against each other, so you can compare sizes.

If you have a box of loose, flat, standard-size prints, a store photo counter is a perfectly good option. Store counters usually ask you to take photos out of albums first, and often turn away curled or torn prints, Polaroids, photos mounted on card and very small prints. Most handle photos only.

We sort everything with you, photograph albums with the photos left in, scan fragile prints by hand, and do slides, negatives and video tapes in the same order. And you deal with a local person you can call directly. See the side-by-side comparison.

No. Sorting is what the first visit is for. We help you group things into categories at your table, so everything can be scanned and filed in a way that makes sense.

No, please don't pull anything out. We photograph albums page by page, by hand, so the photos can stay where they are, including in the "magnetic" kind with sticky pages.

That takes a lot more time than loose prints, so each album gets its own quote, based on how many pages it has and how the photos are mounted. You'll have the price before any work starts, and album orders take a little longer to come back.

If the photos slide easily out of their sleeves, scanning them as loose prints is usually quicker and costs less. We'll suggest it at the visit if it makes sense.

Please mention it when you book. Mould on tapes and a vinegar smell from old film are signs that they're breaking down. We'll look at them at your visit. Some can be handled with care, and some need a professional cleaning first. We'll be honest about which is which.

If your photos got wet in a flood, see our guide: what to do with flood-damaged photos.

No charge. You'll have a written estimate before you decide anything.

All our prices are on the pricing page. At the first visit we count what you have together and write down an estimate. We guarantee your final bill won't go over it, and if the count comes in lower, you pay less.

Homes across Ottawa and nearby communities. If you're not sure we come to you, call 613-864-7444 and ask.

No. Plenty of people would rather not, and that's completely fine. You can meet us at one of our store locations in the Ottawa area instead. We'll confirm which one, and send you the address, once you've booked.

Yes, it makes a wonderful gift. Book with your parent's address and add a note saying who we'll be meeting. You're welcome to be there too. Afterwards, we can send the download link to the whole family.

Before we take anything, you get a signed, itemized receipt with a tracking number. Your things are photographed, sealed in labelled bags and taken to our base here in Ottawa. They are never shipped out of the city.

At the second visit, every original comes back to you and we check it all against the receipt together.

Yes, always. Every item comes back to you, in the same order and groupings you gave us.

It depends on the size of your order. We'll give you an expected date at the first visit, and text you as things move along.

Have a deadline, like a wedding slideshow or a memorial? Tell us when you book and we'll be honest about whether we can make it.

Two ways, and you can have both:

• A download link, free. It's easy to share with the whole family.
• A USB drive, $25. It plugs into most TVs and any computer.

When we bring your originals back, we'll give you a quick look at your files on our laptop.

Absolutely. Lots of people feel the same way. The USB plugs into most TVs, and we can send the download link to a son, daughter or grandchild who can help.

Yes. Each envelope, album or slide box becomes its own folder with a name you'll recognize, scanned in the same order you kept it. Writing on the back of a photo is kept too. You won't get 2,000 files called "scan0001."

Only the people doing the work on your order. We never share your photos or videos, never post them anywhere, and never use them in our advertising.

We keep a backup for 60 days after you receive your files, in case anything goes wrong. Then we delete it for good.