Family Story Hosting

What happens if we decide to no longer use your service, do we lose our stories?

Absolutely not.  These are your stories and they belong to you.  We are creating a tool to allow you to download to your own off-line media all of your pictures, picture information and audio stories.  This tool is not available yet, however if this is something you need sooner we can work with you off-line.  We are committed to helping you preserve your memories on or off-line.

What is a dynamic album?

88 Stories has pioneered a new type of sorting system that allows pictures to be intelligently added to key albums automatically.  By using information you enter about a picture as its index (we call these labels) you can create albums based on any combination of words that are part of those labels.

For instance you can have “Family Trip Florida” as an album and all pictures with that information in multiple labels will be included, in this case the location label was “Florida” the event label is “Family Trip”.  If another member of your family adds additional pictures and labels them “Family Trip Florida”, they will automatically appear in your album without you having to manually move them there.

Can a picture be in two albums at the same time?

Actually a single picture can be placed in an unlimited number of albums simply based on label information.  You can have albums based on people, events, dates, or any number of combinations.  We hope this provides a flexibility to sort pictures based on your own preferences not by any strict standards.

For instance a single picture of my sister and I taken during Halloween when we were kids could fit into an album 1) for all pictures of her and I throughout the years, 2) All Halloween pictures 3) Pictures from our hometown of Milwaukee, etc. 

Can I have more than one audio story for each picture?

Just as two people on the same trip can tell a story differently, so do we expect that people will want to record their own view from a family event.  With this in mind you and your family and friends can create an unlimited number of audio stories for every picture or event.

Can someone else in my network delete my pictures or stories?

While adding extra information or memories to a shared picture is one of our goals at 88stories, we also want to preserve the originals.  With that in mind only the original owner of a picture or audio story can delete it.  If you absolutely hate that dress you were wearing and want to get rid of every picture of it, you will have to call that family member and ask them to delete it.

How many family members or friends can I add to my network?

Many of us have quite large families.  Our goal is to be as inclusive as possible of all of your friends and family.  Thus you can add an unlimited number of friends and family into your network.  If you give them permission they can add pictures, labels and audio stories to be shared with the rest of the family.

Scanning Services

What picture and negative sizes do you support?

We can scan prints any size or shape up to 11 x 14 inches.  Obviously the larger the print the higher the print clarity will be.  By using the latest professional technology available we can scan all prints up to 2400 dpi (by comparison most consumer scanners will go up to 400-800 dpi, the more dots per inch – dpi, the better the quality).  However as a standard we scan all prints at 1200dpi.

We can scan negatives of any standard size this includes 8mm, 16mm, 35mm, 70mm, and 120mm like pictures up to a resolution of 2400 dpi.  Again like pictures the larger the negatives the clearer the final picture will be and again as a standard we scan all negatives at 1200dpi.

Should I request my photos to be scanned at the highest resolution?

The larger the dpi the larger the file size.  We use 1200 dpi following the industry standards which would be a quality sufficient to display or print on a 72inch television or print an 11x14 replica.  That resolution will create an archive picture around 34 megabytes in size by comparison a scan at 2400dpi would make a file 746 meg in size.

Why do you make two copies of every picture?

Our scanning service is specifically designed to both create a permanent archive of your memories but also allow for easy sharing and retrieval of those same memories.  Thus we scan all of your memories into a TIFF format which does not compress the file in any way and is used for long term storage, and also a reason why the file is so large. 

We make a second copy of each picture in a JPG format which is much more portable (approximately 10% the size of TIFF) and used on the website and suitable for emailing.

We highly recommend placing the high resolution memories on a drive or DVD to be stored in a safe place such as a safe deposit box.

Do I have to take all my photos out of their albums before I send them to you?

Having scanned in our own family memories we know how much time you have spent putting your albums together; separating them and putting them back together would be a huge amount of work.  So keep your pictures in the album and send the entire album, we will carefully take the pictures out to scan and place them back in the album.  Our goal is to make this as easy as possible for you.

How long does the scanning take?        

This depends on the makeup of what you send as well as the number of clients we are scanning for at the same time.  Albums of course take a little longer than loose pictures; however our goal is to complete most orders within 2-3 weeks.  

Do I have to send everything to you in one large order?

Most of our clients prefer to send memories over in small groupings usually 4-6 albums or a couple boxes of negatives and prints at a time.  We know it can be a little unnerving sending your family memories out of your control, and thus we try to make this as easy and as comfortable as possible.  Most clients start with a couple of albums to try out the service, once they are comfortable we can progress further.  We will support you if you want to scan 10 memories or 10,000 memories.