You've talked, we've listened! Here are the top five reasons that our customers have scanned their photo and home movie collections.

5. Declutter

No matter how big your house is, clutter makes it seem smaller. Huge collections of photos, slides, negatives, tapes, and reels take up space and make us feel guilty for not having taken care of it already. Cousins from Missouri are hounding us for copies of Grandma's photos, and we are getting tired of avoiding them at family functions. With all the other responisbilities and tasks we have on our plates, how could we find time to take care of it? Besides, many of us inhereted these collections. So it's really not our fault to begin with.

Get rid of the mess and the guilt associated with having boxes full of old pictures, and get them digitized! Use that space in the attic, hall closet, under the bed, garage, etc., for other purposes! Some people find that the digital images are much easier to organize than the physical images. Once you digitize you can make a copy for everyone who might want one (like your cousins from Missouri). Then you can cross it off your list of things to do, and treat yourself to something fun, like a round of golf, a shopping trip, or a nice fried egg sandwich.

4. Give as gifts

For the person who has everything, we have to get creative in our gift giving. There are some great cop-outs, like lottery tickets, or coffee mugs. But if you want to rise above the generic same-old-same-old, consider the gift of memories. That would surely put everyone else's gift to shame. And your gift will shine like the beacon of nostalgia and thoughtfulness that it is. Give it in the form of a convenient gift certificate. It's the gift that keeps on giving, because you could make a copy of the disc for yourself and reap all the benefits of having the digital files at your fingertips.

The more sentimental daughters/sons, mothers/fathers, granddaughters/grandsons, sisters/brothers of us may consider creating slideshows and photo gifts made from scanned photos and movies. This option is popular for making slideshows for weddings and receptions, graduations, and anniversaries. Consider spending the next 50th wedding anniversary purusing memory lane with the people you love most. Also, you can get low-resolution scans put on a SD card for use in a digital picture frame. The lucky recipient can watch a slideshow of their images at home as they go about their daily life.

3. Preserve Them

Pre-1990's film and prints are a ticking time bomb of fade possibility. Granted, not all film was created equal back then, and some stand the test of time better than others. Nonetheless, damage to photos and video collections is a real threat. Get them scanned now, because their condition will probably not improve if you wait.

The chemicals, dyes, and processes that were used are catalysts in the fading process. (Light, heat, and moisture are also culprits!) In order to save the important images for future generations, it's a good idea to have them scanned. You can stop the aging process in it's tracks, because digital images will not fade. Furthermore, the scans greatly benefit from a digital enhancement to return it to it's original appearance. That's why it is included in the price of scanning.

8mm movies have a particularly short shelf life. It's not a question of "if", but rather a question of "when" these home movies will fade and deteriorate. A quick transfer to a DVD or a hard drive is just the thing to preserve these memories from irreversable aging.

2. Remember a Legacy

Not all of us get biographers, official or unofficial. Maybe a handful of us will write our own memoirs. Even fewer will get them published. However, most of us do have a collection of photographs and home movies associated with our past. Whether it's old movies from when our army days, or black and white pictures of our parents when they were children. These mean something to us, and having them digitized means we can share them with the next generation. If they are important for us to keep throughout the years, they are significant enough to scan.

These memories matter because we matter. There is something so special about the house you grew up in. Or the last christmas spent with a relative before they passed. How your hair looked in the 60's, 70's, or 80's. That photo of your wedding day, or the day you took your first child home from the hospital. What an absolute treasure to have. Chances are you want others to inherit these treasures after you are gone.

1. Make them Relevant 

The number one reason to get your pictures digitized is to make them relevant. As customer Jaci said, she had her pictures and movies digitized because she was "tired of storing things I can't use or see." As slides, the pictures aren't useful. However, once they are digital it opens up a whole new world of possibilities. In today's world we print a few photos here and there, but the rest are kept on our computer's hard drive. We post them to facebook and tag our friends and family. We like to watch them on our TV, or on a digital picture frame. We make digital scrapbooks, and show them at family gatherings. They serve a much greater purpose when they are digitized than they do when they are sitting stagnant in a box or album.

In short, these images and videos come alive when they are digitized! Instead of facing the frustration of hunting down projector bulbs on the internet, you can pop a movie DVD into your DVD player, and experience home movies from days gone by. You can place a DVD data disc into your disc drive and put them in your photo library with all the rest of your photos. The list of new ways to experience goes on and on.

And there it is, our list of reasons to scan photos and transfer video. How did we do? Did we miss anything? Shoot us a comment if you think of something we left out.