About Vintage Photo Scan
Fred Nace, president & co-owner
Fred’s Story
Together with my wife, Sam, I am the owner of Life Story Studios, LLC, parent company to The Cheerful Word and Vintage Photo Scan. The Cheerful Word is where we help write and publish extraordinary memoirs for everyday people since 2008.
We launched Vintage Photo Scan in 2018 to digitize the documents, photos, and other memorabilia that people often requested for use in their memoirs. These photos, slides, and old home movies carry our cherished memories, so expanding our services was a natural next step to meet the needs of our clients.
My history in preserving story comes from growing up in the mountains of North Carolina and learning the stories of the families that came into these mountains.Then, enlisting in the Army, I learned many new versions of life's stories - where my fellow soldiers came from and why they joined. As a Russian linguist and intelligence officer for the Army, I discovered many parts of the world and, again, more stories. I admired the many cultures and peoples of the world, including the Middle East where I saw story not just as a human intelligence asset, but a culture of life and beauty and difference that expanded my world view far beyond my Southern mountain mindset. After meeting Sam and learning of her love to preserve stories for everyday people, I saw the similarities of our life’s work and passion for preserving the extraordinary stories that lie within everyday people. We accomplish this through taking your cherished photos, slides, videos, and other memorabilia and converting it into digital files you can share easily.
Vintage has a soft spot for military veterans; Sam’s father was a Marine and I am a retired Army Intelligence Officer. I am developing an elegant service to digitize and organize all of the certificates, orders, and paperwork most of us veterans have stuffed into three-ring binders. Look for Digital214 to launch soon, named for the certificate for military service received upon discharge from active duty.Vintage Photo Scan grew out of a love for preserving family history as part of The Cheerful Word, a boutique memoir writing and publishing company based in Hendersonville, North Carolina. While teaching workshops and coaching her authors, Sam kept getting requests to scan boxes of family photos, slides, and letters, some of which were used in their published memoirs. Eventually, the digital scanning earned its own business.
Sam Nace, founder & co-owner
My history in preserving story starts at my birth. Born to older parents, and frequently joining Mom at work at the nursing home, I grew up at the feet of elders. Their friendly and patient storytelling kindled my lifelong passion for helping others preserve their life stories. I also spent 17 summers as a river rat in Canada among the famed Thousand Islands on the St. Lawrence River. I loved listening to our neighbors tell stories of their lives; painters, military veterans, sculptors, housewives, teachers, fishermen, attorneys, chefs, CEOs, dentists, poets, and many others graced our doorstep. These everyday people shed their titles while on the islands—all drifting on the same peaceful waters of the river as fellow humans taking in all that mother nature presented to us. I learned early that rank and income meant nothing without a story in your heart to share. And share they did! Steeped in love and tales of valor, heartache, survival, and unbounded joy, I discovered that we are all cherished and each of us is worthy of being remembered.
What began as simple note-taking during my visits with dying patients as a home health aide, ended with the launch of The Cheerful Word to commemorate our lives. Then came Vintage Photo Scan.
It’s an honor to bear witness to so many lives… so many stories. And it’s my honor to preserve the images that prompt so very many stories over the dinner table, the living room, and at every holiday.
Join us in celebrating life and the many stories our days on this earth stir in our hearts.
Why Choose Vintage Photo Scan?
Trust
Here's what our customers say about us:
“It was a pleasure to work with Sam to preserve my old family slides. She was engaged in helping me tell my story and preserve those memories. Her genuine interest and enthusiasm made it a joy to do.”
“I was very comfortable leaving my family photos with Sam at Vintage Photo Scan. She did a remarkable job with my pictures and the turn-around time was just what I needed. I highly recommend her!”
“If you have old VHS movies, I highly recommend hiring Vintage Photo Scan to bring them back to life. Thanks so much, Sam!”
Integrity
You will always receive our personal attention and professional acumen. From the moment you deliver your items to us until the moment they are returned to you, we follow a strict set of protocols to ensure the tracking of your order. If you ship us your items, your package is sent with a tracking number to our address and returned to you the same way. If you meet us in person, you sign your items over to us and they go directly into a covered plastic bin where they are stored for the duration of the project.
During the process of digital scanning, only one person handles your project from start to finish. Your items never leave our building until your project is complete.
We use white, cotton gloves to handle your items. This protects the integrity of the image, cleans the dust before scanning, and prevents skin oils from transferring to the image.
Expertise
We bring you nine years of experience using a variety of digital scanning systems. Today, we have a superior system that produces excellent results delivered with a personal, professional touch for every image we deliver to you.
Our proficiency doesn’t end with inspecting every digital scan. Each image is also examined to determine if additional cropping, editing, or image/color correction is required. We do not use automated image correction software because we believe the human eye makes a better determination of what a photo should look like.
Each image undergoes a quality check three times before it reaches our customers: once when it is cleaned and scanned, once when it is checked and edited if necessary, and again when it is filed and organized for delivery.
High-Resolution Scanning
We scan every image at 600 dpi for archival quality. At this resolution, most photos can be edited, enlarged, and printed for many uses. You may choose to have us scan at a higher resolution for an extra cost.
The output for each scan is a JPEG file format. A TIFF is available at an extra cost.