Here's what people ask us most. If your question isn't here, call either store — we'd always rather talk it through with you.
Right from your phone, which is how nearly all of our orders arrive. Upload straight from your camera roll and order in a few taps — a computer or tablet works just as well. You can also walk into either store and upload at one of our kiosks. If you make an account, your uploads stay saved in your gallery, so ordering more later takes seconds instead of hunting for the photo again.
Either. Pick up at whichever store is more convenient, or have most items shipped to you. A few things are pickup only, and the product page will say so before you check out.
Whichever is closer. We route work between the two stores, so it makes no difference to what you can order or where you pick up. The one exception worth knowing: film dropped at West Bloomfield adds about a day, since C-41 processing runs at Bloomfield Hills.
No. Quotes and estimates are free, on any size project.
Most of our scanning services have a small setup cost built into the first item — the first slide, the first strip of negatives, the first flatbed scan. Getting the equipment calibrated and dialed in for your specific originals takes the same effort whether you're bringing one or a thousand, so that work sits in the first one and everything after it costs less. It means the per-item price drops as your project grows. Movie reel transfers also carry a $50 minimum. Ask us for a quote and we'll break the whole thing down before anything gets started.
Usually yes, if it came straight off your phone. Photos taken with a recent iPhone or Android print beautifully, even at surprisingly large sizes. What causes trouble is what happens to a photo after it's taken. Screenshots are the worst offender — they're low resolution and shaped wrong for standard print sizes. Photos pulled from social media, sent by text, or emailed at a reduced size lose detail too. If you want to check on an iPhone, open the photo and swipe up; you'll see its pixel dimensions. Roughly 2000 x 3000 or better and you're in good shape for most sizes. You'll also get a warning when you upload if we don't recommend printing at the size you've picked. And if you'd just like a person to look at it, we're happy to check before or after you order — call us or bring it in.
Almost certainly yes, and here's why. Your phone screen makes photos look brighter and more vivid than they really are — that's the phone's software enhancing the display, not the actual image file. Print that file as-is and it can come back flatter or duller than what you remember seeing. Color correction is one of our team adjusting your file so the print matches what you expected. It's included by default for that reason. The people who might skip it are professional photographers and artists working on a calibrated monitor who already know how their files print. If that's you, ask about test prints — we'll dial in your color, then hand back the corrected file so future orders can run as-is and match every time. For anyone selling their work, that's worth doing once.
Tell us and we'll almost always remake it at no charge. If we made the mistake, we fix it — no discussion needed, on anything we produce. Two situations work differently. If you approved a proof, that approval is what we printed from, so a reprint after that point is at your cost; we'll always make sure you understand that before you sign off. And if you chose to order without color correction, nobody on our team reviewed the file before printing — that's what makes it cheaper — so we can't guarantee the result. It's why we recommend proofs on enlargements and wall art, where the stakes are higher.
Absolutely — this is a large part of what we do. Bring us an idea and we'll build it. We do a lot of Photoshop work: retouching, removing or adding people, swapping heads, changing backgrounds, cleaning up whatever's in the way. We also design custom versions of nearly everything we make, from names and text on gifts to fully original cards and layouts. If you can picture it, come describe it to us and we'll tell you honestly whether we can pull it off.
Sometimes, and we know this one is frustrating. Owning the print doesn't mean owning the rights to it — copyright stays with the photographer for decades, often outliving them. So we can't scan and reproduce a professional portrait without permission. There are several ways through it: written permission or a release from the photographer, which we're glad to keep on file; a photographer who has passed with no one holding the rights; or, if you genuinely can't reach them, a signed statement from you to that effect. If you have the digital files, we can print those without any issue. As a rule of thumb, a studio name on the front or back means we need permission first, while a generic copyright notice with no name attached is usually fine to duplicate. Bring it in and we'll take a look with you.
We quote every job individually, so the real answer comes when we see what you have. But to give you a rough sense: a handful of prints can often be same-day, a few hundred is usually a matter of days, and a few thousand tends to run a week or more. Treat those as ballpark, not promises. What actually drives the timeline is condition and complexity — loose prints ready to feed a scanner move quickly, while photos in albums, frames, or magnetic pages have to come out by hand first, and that's often more work than people expect. Our current workload matters too. We'll give you a real estimate when you drop off, and we'd rather tell you honestly up front than have you waiting on a number we invented.
Slides and negatives run at about the same pace. Standard 35mm, APS, and 120 go through a dedicated film scanner and move along nicely — a small batch can be a day or so, a few hundred more like a week. Medium format and odd-sized originals are the slow ones: those need flatbed scanning, one at a time, and take considerably longer. Slides still in carousels also change the math. Rough numbers only; we'll quote yours properly when we see it.
Tape is captured in real time, so a rough rule of thumb is about double the running time of the tape — a two-hour tape is roughly four hours of work. Add whatever is already ahead of it in our queue and you have a ballpark. Audio transfers work the same way. As with everything else, we'll give you a real estimate at drop-off.
Anywhere from a day to two or three weeks, entirely depending on the damage. We really do need to see the photo before we can tell you. Email us a picture of it and we'll quote from that — though if you have the physical original, we'd rather scan it ourselves first, since our scanner captures far more detail to work from than a phone photo does.
Usually, for about 20% — though a few items run higher, and some very large pieces can't be rushed at all. Ask when you drop off and we'll tell you straight whether we can hit your date.
No. Your originals stay between our Bloomfield Hills and West Bloomfield locations. Some services run at one store and some at the other, so your box may travel between the two — but it never goes further than that. Nothing is shipped to a third party or an out-of-state facility, and the person handling your materials is one of our tenured team members, not a seasonal hire.
Always, in the same condition they arrived. We don't discard anything unless you specifically ask us to.
Most often a USB drive, AirDropped at our counter, or shared through Google Drive. Photos come back as JPEG by default; TIFF is available on film and negative scans. If you develop film with us and have an account, your scans go straight into your gallery here and stay there. We're expanding that to other scanning services.
We hold files for a month after your order. Film scans tied to an account stay in your gallery indefinitely. If you're past a month and have lost your copy, call us anyway before assuming it's gone — we can often still help.
