Photo Restoration

Instead of a fixed price, we only charge for our time. It saves you money on simple jobs and helps us maintain quality on hard ones. The categories below may give you an idea of typical costs. We recommend that you email us a digital scan of your picture for a firm price quote. We can fix many proglems very quickly, so our quote may be lower than your guess.

Level 1. Typical cost $20

The photograph needs correction for color balance or tonal range and/or a few flaws like scratches and discoloration in non-critical parts of the image.

Level 2. Typical cost $40

Picture has a few flaws in critical parts such as the face or needs many corrections.

Level 3. Typical cost $75

Major restoration work. The black and white sample on our front page is a Level 3 restoration. A crack in the paper obscured one eye and there was discoloration, scratches and crazing everywhere.

Photo Manipulation

Difficulty and cost vary over a wide range. We can remove acne or small scars for someting like $10. Softening wrinkles would take a bit more. If you want us to cut out a person from a complex background, insert her into another and the have it look perfect in a billboard add with the new background showing through strands of hair, it will cost significantly more.

The cost is generally proportional to the size in pixels of the manipulation and the complexity of its shape; a ball with a well-defined edge is easier to move than a tree.

The most common request we get is a group picture where all but one person looks good. We can usually copy a face from another exposure of the same group shot for under $50. If we have to copy from much different picture, it can be tricky to match the color and lighting, which increases the cost. The manipulation work we do rarely costs over $100.

Film Scanning

We make high-resolution (larger than 16 megapixels) scans of your negatives and slides for $5. We will blow away loose dust before the scan, but most slides do have some small-scale imperfections, which become visible at high magnification. Most do not effect print quality, but for demanding applications we can digitally remove them for a separate restoration fee.

Large scan files do not email well. We can upload to your FTP server or send CDs and DVDs by mail, which we record for $10 per CD and $20 per DVD.

Digital File Storage

Every picture you want to keep for posterity should be digitally archived because digital files do not degrade over time like film does. But the CD's or hard drives can fail. We maintain 4 physical copies in 2 separate locations, and refresh and update media periodically. The cost is 1 cent per megabyte, in increments of 100 MB and 5 years. (If you have 75 MB with us, we will charge you $5 every five years.)

Listed in the Arlington, Virginia Photographer, Professional Photographer Directory at Marketingtool.com