Are photolab negatives to digital (e.g. CD) always better than a low cost USB self scanner?

Question

Background

I have a low cost USB negatives scanner that is operated manually by passing the negatives in a tray through it and scanning one by one. The quality looks good enough - for old everyday leisure photos mostly taken on compacts, nothing of precision here. The sensor is 5M pixel and colour depth per channel (RGB) is 10 bits.

Spending money to save time (scarce)

The alternative option for me is to get the negatives digitized by a service, and Boots and Jessops in the UK offer such a service at a price point that I'm happy to use: between 5-8 pounds per 24 or 36 frames. I have many packs of frames, multiples of 10.

My spare time is very limited. So I am seriously considering a service, to spend money to save time as I am able and willing to afford this.

Care of developer handling negatives

Regarding concerns one might have over loss of precious memories at a developer: 1) I have the best shows from the negatives in print form and 2) Both services offer 1 hour turnaround service which makes it unlikely that they would get "lost in the post", for example.

Decluttering

Once the process is done and I am happy with the results, I will discard the negatives and any prints. I am currently in the advanced stages of digitizing all my documents if their paper form is not mandatory, or simply discarding non-essential material without digitizing. My place is increasingly minimalist by the week :)

My question is: do you think the results of the service would be at least as good as doing it manually at home? Regarding quality?

Answer 1

I would stay away from using the word "always" as exceptions certainly exist. I would assume that the quality of scanners in most shops is much higher quality then your basic negative scanner, but why don't you just ask them what quality the scans are? Most shops that are legitimate have different levels of scans depending all on what you want(and price of course).

Answer 2

I worked in a professional lab for 15 years. With a modern high quality scanner (like the Epson Perfection V600 Photo Scanner) there will be very little difference between what you get at home and what you get from the lab. The real area where the difference exists is the final product. At Miller's (the lab I worked at), we had every scan cleaned up by a professional Photoshop artist. Any scratches or dust spots were removed and the color was corrected by quality control before the file was finished. If there was a problem, such as damage or severe degradation, they would contact the customer and ask if the customer would like more extensive clean up and restoration. Those are things you just won't get with a home scanner. Additionally, check with your lab to see what level of service they provide when they scan. If there's no clean up or color corrections, then don't waste your money on them when you could do it yourself.