Question: How to scan photo prints in high quality??

[renzokuken]

Dear CSers,

I've recently found a really old photo (print) I like when i was clearing my stash.
The photo brings back nostalgic memories and I would love to digitize the photo into my computer.

The problem is, there are no negatives of that old photo, and when I tried scanning it at home with my scanner, the photos turned out pixelated. Took it to a photo shop in a nearby mall and they gave me the same pixelated photo which I had at home.

Despeckle-ing the photo in photoshop makes the photo blur although it looks less pixelated

so my question is

are there any stores which can scan photo prints (not negatives) in high quality??
(some special scanner or something etc.)

Or do i have to resort to photoshop to restore the image??

PS: the problem lies with the scanners i think, when i look at the original up-close, it's sharp and nice

 

[Octarine]

You could check the Services Offered section for people offering negative scanning. As long as they don't use a special film scanner most scanners used for negatives are just flat bed scanners with film scanning unit. Mine is Epson V600, which can do film but also normal pictures or documents.

 

[pinholecam]

Why not try to do it with your DSLR with macro lens?

However, I don't think such copying (scanning/photographing) will stand up to pixel peeping.

 

[catchlights]

do remember that if the original is too small, poor in quality, you won't able get satisfactory results.

 

[renzokuken]

thank you all for your replies....

i went to further search for solutions to my results online and some of the people recommended a certain photo scanner by espon

consulted my other friend and she recommended me to scan the prints with my scanner but customize the dpi to 1200 instead...

it's much better now

and for people who used the search function and came across this

there are photo scanning services in Singapore. But most of them requires you to have a minimum order of around 100 photos
have not tried their service myself so i can't comment on quality, but if you tried it before please add on to this thread so future similar queries will be answered



thanks again to all who replied to this thread