Professional quality service…

IPC, formed in 1993, has been supplying specialist scanning services for the preservation of material of all types, for commercial organisations, the NHS and Government for over 20 years. We operate from modern custom designed and high security premises in St. Ives, Cambridgeshire.

We can now offer you a personal service, using our experience, to secure and preserve your precious memories.
Using high quality professional scanners, we can cater for any size of original material (as standard up to A3 size), colour or black and white.

Photos and much more….

We will scan your photographs, individually or in albums, in colour, black and white, as standard at 600 DPI to get high quality images - this higher setting is used to capture finer detail, and to ensure the resulting JPEG images are suitable for viewing on any size device.

Importantly, we can also scan other types of material as well as photos, which often make up a store of past memories; for example, certificates for achievements, greeting cards, diaries, drawings, correspondence and other paper based memorabilia.

Film Slides (35mm)

We provide a set standard for the scanning and enhancing of all 35mm cardboard or plastic mounted slides incl. Kodachrome. After preparing the slides by applying brush / air dusting, we will flatbed scan each slide at 6400 dpi using software dust / blemish reduction and auto colour enhancing,  to produce a high quality result, which will fit the majority of customer’s needs. Should customers require additional adjustments to the images produced, or other format slides, these will be costed on an individual case basis.

Film Negatives

These can be of various sizes (up to 9 x 12 cm) and originally will have had their own protective sleeve. However, many we see from customers are without the cover and in a lot of cases are dust or scratch damaged. However with our expert handling that includes air brushing, and the use of scanning resolution at 2400, with special enhancement facilities, the results can be excellent, dependent on the level of damage, bringing the past to life!

Titles

Each set of photos or other material you supply to us can be have a title, e.g. a subject and date, if provided with the originals and detailed on your order form.  Each image will also have a unique sequential reference number.

Delivery & Return of your originals

You are welcome to deliver the material to us at IPC House in St.Ives, Cambridgeshire and see our processes, or you can arrange for delivery to us by a method of your choosing. We recommend sending via Royal Mail’s Special Delivery Guaranteed Next Day service, as this means we will sign for its receipt (and you can insure the contents).

IPC is an ISO 9001 registered company and as part of our processes your documents will be checked on arrival and any discrepancies advised. Also, if we have any queries regarding your instructions, we will contact you before the job commences. Whilst with us, your documents will be securely stored; access to our building is electronically controlled at all times.

After scanning, payment and your images/originals

Once we have scanned your originals and the images have been quality checked by our team, they will be copied to your chosen media (CD/DVD/Memory Stick) and an invoice for the work will be produced and either emailed or posted to you. Once you have paid the invoice, by BACS, Credit or Debit card or PayPal, the media will be posted to you via Royal Mail’s Special Delivery Service.

To view your images, insert the media into a CD/DVD drive of a computer (or USB if using a Memory Stick)and select the relevant JPEG viewer installed on your PC or device.

When you have checked the images and you have accepted them, your originals will be returned or made available for collection. If there are queries over any image quality, and a better scan be achieved, we will do so free of charge.

Guidance notes on scanning:

• DPI means the number of dots per inch or the resolution the scanner uses – the higher the level the more detail (not all seen by the naked eye) that is captured.
• Originals that are deemed by our QA staff to be of poor quality will still be scanned but noted in a ‘Poor Quality’ report and returned with the originals.