Original art, its format, how to send it

ORIGINAL ART – THE STARTING POINT

Unless sent to us as a digital file, we always scan your original art and work on its digital copy. Your artwork remains unchanged and is returned to you when all work is completed. We can scan, restore and print large, even panoramic images!

Originals, their formats, and how to send them to us:
Photographic print or flat artwork	Send by mail	See comments and recommendations – Format A
Film negative, transparency or slide	Send by mail	See comments and recommendations – Format B
Large digital file	Upload to FTP	See comments and recommendations – Format C
Large digital file saved to CD-ROM	Send by mail	See comments and recommendations – Format D
Photocopy (facsimile, Xerox)	Send by mail	See comments and recommendations – Format E
Small digital file	Attach to e-mail or upload to FTP	See comments and recommendations – Format F
IMPORTANT NOTE: Among the many formats listed below, the preferred formats are A and B. These formats are either first generation images (film) or as close to them as possible (original prints). When you provide us with originals in either of these two formats, we can do the scans exactly as we need them to be. It also ensures the highest quality of the final images, because we scan your art at very high resolution – our equipment allows us to work on very large digital files, frequently in the range of 100 to 200 MB. Furthermore, by using various scanning techniques and our high-end scanners, we can often recover digital data that cannot be obtained with simple and low-resolution scans.
Format A – Photographic print or flat artwork
Since we do not normally charge for scanning (see note 1), sending an original art to us by mail probably is the most convenient and least expensive option for you. We are convinced it is entirely safe to ship your artwork by mail – especially if you pack your art carefully and ship it by a service that provides you with a tracking number. Please see our PACKING AND SHIPPING GUIDE. Note 1: Scanning of items larger than 8.5 by 11 in. may require some charges . Note 2: Your originals are insured up to US $10,000 while in our possession.
Format B – Film negative, transparency or slide
1. Producing new images. We scan images on your film, repair or enhance them, and produce prints or digital files as from all other types of originals. 2. Repairing film. Sorry, we do not repair the film material as such. However, we can scan the images on film at a very high resolution, repair their damage or enhance them, and produce high quality digital files. These files can be used to produce new negatives, transparencies and slides. Although we do not offer this last part of work, we can subcontract it to a local lab.
Format C – Large digital file sent through our server (FTP) Format D – Large digital file saved to a CD-ROM
Before scanning your originals and producing your digital file, you should determine the size of the largest print you may ever want to have made from the repaired image. Please use our SCANNING GUIDE AND CALCULATOR to find the recommended scanning resolution. You may like to know that to produce high quality images, we often work with very high resolution files, greatly exceeding 100 MB. The files of such size are most useful when repairing details of damaged images, although often they are not needed for printing them out. Please send us your files in an uncompressed format, such as "tif" or "psd" (Photoshop), or, if this is not possible, at least as "jpg" compressed at the "highest quality" setting. Note that files produced by some digital cameras are often marginal or inadequate for high quality large prints, especially when the images are cropped and use only portions of the original frame. To transmit your digital file to us using our FTP server, please go to the page UPLOAD YOUR FILE and follow instructions on that page.
Format E – Photocopy (facsimile, Xerox)
It is possible to recreate an image from a facsimile (Xerox) copy of a photographic print – please see samples of the work we have done (see "Images Repaired"). However, please remember that the quality of the image recreated from such a copy will never be as good as the one which was based on the original photographic print such as Format A. To make a facsimile copy of your original, we recommend using a reliable copy service. Please order the highest possible quality color copy (even when the image is only black-and-white), enlarged so that it fills almost an entire 8.5 by 11 in. (or A4) sheet of paper. We recommend color copies instead of black-and-white, since their resolution is higher and the halftone-dot pattern is less pronounced.
Format F – Small digital file
A small digital file, about 1 MB or less, sent to us either as an e-mail attachment or uploaded to FTP, could be useful and is often sufficient for us to provide you with a firm cost estimate – when the image shows enough detail in critical areas. Please note, however, that a file this size is generally not suitable for repair work or a quality final print.

We are serious about quality.


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