The Best Photo Scanning Service by Wirecutter

Memories Renewed was chosen as the best photo scanning service by Wirecutter, a New York Times company.

thebestphotoscanningservice

We’ve spent 80 hours of research and testing to figure out that the best place for most people to get their photos and film scanned is Memories Renewed, an online scanning service based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We came to this conclusion after researching 37 different scanning services; shipping out slides, negatives, and prints to the 12 most promising contenders; and then submitting a set of damaged family photos in need of restoration to our final three picks. Memories Renewed consistently delivered great-looking digital files throughout our testing process, offering the best combination of price, quality, and turnaround time of any service we tested. Their order process was simple, communication was prompt and personal, and our originals were safely packed for return, things we couldn’t say for all of our contenders

Original Wirecutter Article on archive.org

Wirecutter Inc., A New York Times Company

The Best Photo Scanning Service

After comparing comparing our scans with other services, Wirecutter chose Memories Renewed as the best option for most people to get their photos scanned. It is truly an honor because there is a sea of options available for people to consider when choosing a digitization service. The original article can be viewed here.

Personalized Quality Service

Your photos and videos are important! We at Memories Renewed strive to do our best to provide you with an affordable yet personalized service.  Memories Renewed doesn’t require payment upfront, and will only charge you for the media that you send to us and want digitized. We will give you a free quote, communicate with you during each step of the process of digitizing your materials and return great digital versions!

Other Reviews

Wirecutter wasn’t the only client that was blown away by our service. Our customer reviews speak for themselves!

Memories Renewed
Excellent
5.0
Based on 97 reviews
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The reviews I read before placing an order (35mm slides and VHS tapes digitizations) were "spot on". Exceeded my expectations. Recommended.
In August, 2024, I dropped off a box of several hundred slides with Memories Renewed for digitizing and received the images and originals back only a week or so later. The color rendering is remarkable. Old slides tend to lose their green dyes, resulting in an autumnal red-orange cast, but the images from MR looked freshly taken. I have posted the original and the MR scan of my grandfather in a canoe taken in the late 1970s. The scan I did myself, accurately reflecting the slide today, is yellow and contrasty with age. The MR scan looks like I took it a week ago.
What a great place! They did an outstanding job of digitizing my old slides which came back looking just like my originals--in some cases better. The JPGs were organized in the same order as the slides I sent in, and were nicely grouped into folders. The slides, too, came back in the same order, so it'll be much easier to transfer the labels from the slides to the JPGs. Not only did they do great work, but everybody I dealt with was just so nice and helpful! Memories Renewed embodies everything we hope for when dealing with a small business. I warmly recommend them.
I had such a great experience with Memories Renewed. I sent about 6 or 7 8mm movie reels at a time which contained movies from my childhood and before. Over a period of time, they digitized all thirty something reels, including the ones my bother sent. I have downloaded them all to a large flash drive for each of my kids. Now they can treasure these memories which include movies from over 6o years ago. Without Memories Renewed, these would have been a lost treasure. Many thanks to them for such a wonderful gift!Memories renewed has great customer service as well. I called twice when they were not available, and without even leaving a message, they promptly returned my call. They were an absolute pleasure to deal with!
Excellent, prompt service and communication. Emails were answered within a few hours and the large project we had was completed sooner than scheduled. EXTREMELY pleased with the results. This company has the best customer service I have experienced in a very long time. Thank you for a job well done and will happily pass on our experience with friends and neighbors.
My 97 year old aunt sent me a bunch of old negatives which she had found in her apartment. After reading other reviews about Memories Renewed, I sent the negatives off to them. Within 2 weeks, my order had been processed, paid for, and my download provided. What absolutely beautiful old color photos awaited me of my deceased grandparents, my deceased cousin, and my cousin's children. These are treasured photos which I had never seen before. I'm so glad I trusted Memories Renewed with my negatives.
Deeply impressed. Thrilled with the quality. I culled the pictures I wanted. Happy that you reached out offering to use your best judgment to scan certain items. Happy to have received my items back, but no longer needed since the pictures are perfectly preserved.
These folks have made a potentially very complicated process extremely easy and simple to follow. Any snags I ran into were of my own doing and they were prompt (within a few hours) in replying to email and quick to help me resolve.SUPER courteous on the phone and the quality of their work is really kind of impressive. It comes with price tag, but completely worth every penny for the ease of the experience and having my mind put at ease that my memories are in good hands. It was clear that they put a lot of care and respect into their work on processing and protecting my pics and media.As a consumer, one of the best customer experiences I can remember in quite some time.I plan to use them more in the future.Signed,Happy in Oregon
Memories Renewed provided excellent and friendly service in digitizing my personal collection of slides. The quality of the images is terrific! It gives me such pleasure to have these images of my old slides and I notice details in the images that I have never noticed before even when projected the old fashioned way back in the day.I highly recommend Memories Renewed for this work.
A few days ago I received my box of slides and thumb drives of digitized copies, and I am immensely happy with the results. What a tremendous job they did! The pictures themselves may not all have been great, but the memories certainly are. I am also impressed with the way they organized and labeled them on the thumb drive and the ease with which I can access them. Altogether, it has been a great experience, worth every penny. High recommendation!
I had a large collection of old VHS tapes, DVD's, as well as casettes of my children growiing up and other family members for over 30 years. I was told by various companies that they didn't have the equipment needed to work with some of the older formatts. I'm so grateful that I found Memories Renewed- they converted virtually everything. I struggle to keep up with technology and I asked a hundred questions throughout the entire process. Their patience and kindness were exceptional. They're easy to reach on the phone and they call right back if needed. They made the whole project possible for me.
Wow! Service, quality, customer focus - it’s all there. My slides were 50 years old and the digital files looked like they were taken yesterday. All those memories came rushing back. It was overwhelming.
Professional, clear communication and the digital video was of excellent quality.
I had around 100 or so 35mm slides scanned from a trip I took trekking in Peru in 1996. They were in excellent condition, always kept in a slide storage box. My plan was to put the photos in a Shutterfly photo book. The first quote I received for the job was from a local company that wanted around $7.00/slide. Although I really wanted to do this project, that was way over my budget. As luck would have it, Consumer Reports did a review of photo archiving companies. From that, I contacted Memories Renewed and obtained a quote to have the photos digitized and sent to me on a memory stick. I couldn't be more pleased with the result. Color rendition was excellent and the slides were properly cleaned (mostly just dust) before scanning. The Shutterfly book is wonderful and captures that adventure at 16,000 feet in the Peruvian Andes! I highly recommend Memories Renewed.
I highly recommend Memories Renewed to anyone who values a job well done, excellent customer service, quick turn-around timesand fair pricing. From the very beginning, every staff person (Chris, Julia, and Andre) I interacted with was helpful and patient. I did A LOT of research before deciding and I can honestly say choosing Memories Renewed is one of the best decisions I've ever made!
Memories Renewed is Consumer Reports' top choice - and with good reason! I had some old family slides digitized with truly outstanding results. I had done it myself using a DIY digital capture device and wasn't happy with the results. I'm really glad I tried Memories Renewed. The pictures came out with lighting and colors adjusted amazingly well for old slides. And their process for handling the slides and providing a link to the digitized results was flawless. The people there handled some special requests I had without a blink. Overall, things couldn't have worked out better.
Super professional video transfer. I paid for a link in Dropbox and a USB stick. Quick turnaround, very very nice
I received my digitized slides from Memories Renewed two weeks ago. Considering their age (50+ years) and storage conditions - severe summer and winter temperature swings, dust and humidity - they turned out fantastically.By coincidence my daughter, and her family were visiting from Montana. It was most enjoyable for us as a family to view the photos together. Thanks to you and your staff for the time, tedium, and dedication to their craft that we now all enjoy.
Order completed way ahead of schedule. Image quality superb. Cost more than reasonable.
Excellent job and very personable!
Upon re-discovering several reels of Super 8 film from the 80s, I decided I had better digitize them before they deteriorated further. I chose 4k output to get the very best rendering. Color balance and clarity are excellent--true to the original film. On top of that, it is nice to be able to watch the films anywhere. I loaded them onto my home media server and can watch them on my TV. Also, they are easy to share with family in cloud storage. Great job!
We could not have been happier with the job Memories Renewed did. The 8mm movie reels had been in a hot South Carolina garage for decades and the movies came out great. We will definitely recommend this company and will be sending more memories their way soon.
Best experience! We needed a rush order and they got it to us 4 days before the proposed date. Images turned out great and being able to have them on a flash drive for the rest of time is so awesome, I can’t thank the team at Memories Renewed enough, I’ll definitely be back
Excellent customer service! They kept me informed throughout the entire production process from receipt of my 35mm negatives right up to the shipping information. Very easy to use their service.
After reviewing 50 year old slides that we kept saying we want to have prints made, we saw the wonderful review of Memories Renewed in Consumer Reports. Like everyone else, we were concerned about sending these memories to a site we had no experience with. Memories Renewed kept us aware every step of the way, when received, when processed in jpg photos, and finally when the flash drive and our original slides were on their way back home. The end pictures are beautiful. Memories Renewed took great care every step of the way. What a great company!
The website was easy to understand. Lay out is not overloaded.
At first, I was nervous about sending my family photos out to be scanned since I had no idea if my photos would be treated with care. BUT, after doing this entire process with Memories Renewed, I can 100% vouch for their professionalism. I swear to god, not a single photo was returned to me out of their original order! They did an absolutely amazing job caring for my family memories, and I will be sure to use their services many more times.Thank you so so much!
They provided quality work at a reasonable price, and a link that I could share with family. The albums consisted of family pictures that my mother had gathered and preserved for many years. This was an absolute treasure!
Great customer service. Very happy with the results. They literally run to take care of their customers.
They did such a good job converting home videos, VHS's from the early 90's to digital. Literally brought back my childhood. Worth every penny and inexpensive. I would have gladly paid more, in fact they probably don't charge enough!
I sent to Memories Renewed a collection of VHS, Video 8, and Mini DV tapes of original movies that my mother wrote, directed, and produced between 1989 and 2004 featuring her grandchildren.The folks at Memories Renewed were incredible at every stage of working with me to digitize the movies, including collaborating with me in deciding on which source material to supply, reviewing multiple sources for a single movie to determine the best one to use, creating a separate file for each movie, and custom titling each file with the movie date and name.The digitized movies are fabulous. We were surprised by the quality given the condition of the source material. Here is what I wrote to them:My mother and I and our family want to thank you guys for a job incredibly and professionally well-done!! It was a true pleasure working with you, and we are thrilled with the results.I can’t believe how you graciously coped with all the materials we supplied and gave us a beautifully done final product with perfect file separations and titling.
Thank you for respecting and safe handling my 60 year old slides. The digital files are great. My order was finished much quicker than expected.I'm so glad I found this amazing place.
I had the immense pleasure to work with Julia and Doug on my very small job. They answered all of my questions with very obvious concern and caring. My job was completed the day after I dropped the slides off. Great job and I would highly recommend this business!
The service and the quality are beyond awesome!they digitized my film from 1971, flawlessly; ♥customer care is very nice, thank you so much!
Absolutely Tops in caring and competent customer service! I had clumsily glued photos into a collage and Memories Renewed turned it into a archive treasure! Beautifully handled from phone call to finished job. Many thanks!
Great company to work with! Exceeded my expectations. I will be working with them for my future jobs for sure!
Exceptional service! I had slides from the 1950’s scanned and the quality of the resulting images was truly amazing. My order was also completed quickly. I absolutely recommend Memories Renewed and I will not hesitate to use them again.
Absolutely amazing customer service. They fix a childhood VHS tape and converted it. They saved all those amazing moments. I have now dropped off more items to be converted. Definitely don't hesitate. They are amazing.
I brought quite a few old slides that my mom had given me about 40 years ago. I didn't have a slide projector so I never knew what was on them. I noticed them on a shelf and thought I would see if I could have them made into photos. I brought them to one place and they were put on a USB. I was disappointed because they weren't clear but I was surprised to see that there were pictures of me and my husband when we were first dating, we were teenagers, pics of prom, our wedding and some of my oldest daughter. these were made so precious to me because my husband passed away in April and I didn't have any of these kinds of pictures except for wedding pics. I brought the slides to Memories Renewed and told them about my previous experience at a different place and they assured me they would do their best. First off they did the job much quicker and I can't begin to express how wonderful the new USB was. I put it into a digital frame and it brought me so much joy and comfort to see all the beautiful, clear pictures of my husband. And there were new ones that weren't on the USB from the other place! You can tell they care enough to do such excellent work. I will forever be grateful to them and if you are looking to have a project done, don't hesitate to Have Memories Renewed do it. You won't be disappointed!!
Great service!
Sent in three 40+ year old cassette recordings. Full disclosure, they screwed up on one of them the first time around. Spoke with Julia and resolved the issue most expeditiously. The final product brought tears to my eyes. Gonna have to dig through the archives for their next project. The real deal. Thank you!
I have used Memories Renewed many times for videos, cassettes, photos and slides transfers to digital format.Excellent service!! Confidential, knowledgeable and respectful...
Terrific job digitizing 100 year old photo negative's! You would never know you could get this type of quality looking at the negatives.
This is the best scanning/ restoration service I have ever used. Other companies may be cheaper - but you get what you pay for. The digital files I received were top quality. I was especially amazed at the vivid colors, resolution and clarity of the photos. Many of my negatives were more than 35 years old and had not been stored correctly. They were able to correct the scratches and dust spots with precision. They have truly given me back some wonderful childhood memories...which is priceless!
Thank you Memories Renewed for a wonderful experience. You are a very professional and courteous company that is committed to customer satisfaction and this is one very satisfied customer. Your attention to detail including confirmation emails, update emails, and then follow up has been top notch. I had 25 Hi-8 cassettes transferred and the videos look stunning. The fact that we could not play back these videos for years means we have time to sit down and watch memories on our screen. I highly recommend Memories Renewed to anyone looking to preserve video content. Thank you! David & Teresa
This company is top notch in every way! I was so impressed with the professionalism of the customer service and the quality of their product is awesome! They are very prompt as well. I received my order back much sooner than was estimated. If you're looking for audio digitizing services, Chris and his crew are the ones to use, period. Memories Renewed is a breath of fresh air indeed and they have my highest recommendation.
I can't say enough good things about Chris Fure and his team at Memories Renewed. Their collaboration and work on digitally producing a family album of the photos my parents left when they passed and my images of family that was accumulated over the past 60 years was first rate. The finished product - thumb drives - were my Christmas gifts to my three siblings who were surprised and pleased with the high quality and organization of the image files.Chris and his team were professional and communicative every step of the process from estimating cost to promptly delivering the thumb drives and returning my originals.I highly recommend Memories Renewed for their excellent technical and project management skills; as they exceeded all my expectations in my first-time attempt to create a digital "Family Photo Album."Jack E., Florida Keys, FL
Absolutely first-rate experience with Memories Renewed. They did a professional job of digitizing (and in some cases touching up) my old family photos, and they were quick to respond to my emails and questions. They even took less time completing the project than they'd originally estimated. Highly recommended.
Chris and his team at Memories Renewed are amazing! I have had Memories Renewed digitize a number of projects for me. They completed my latest project very quickly and the final product was perfect. I wouldn’t trust anyone else with my photos, slides, VHS/Beta tapes or 8 mm films! Thank you to Chris and his team for helping to keep my memories alive!
They did a fantastic job on my chair and bar stool cushions!!! Super quick a and great to work with...will definitely refer them and work with them again!!
Although the turn around is slower than you might like, Chris and his team did a GREAT job of digitizing a some old family pictures and slides for me --...
Great customer service and quality. I came in a day or two before Christmas with hundreds of photos to be converted and Chris went out of his way to get all...
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