Being handed a collection of old and occasionally dusty photo albums that need to be digitized can be a little daunting but very rewarding. These are precious and often very old books full of the best memories that someone has carefully selected, arranged and archived. Sometimes these beautiful albums full of family memories and stories are put away and stored out of sight and become forgotten. Sometimes they degrade due to storage conditions and often due to the acidic adhesives that many albums use to 'magnetically' hold them in place. The sooner you act to digitize the better.
It's a myth that younger generations won't care about old photos. In fact, they are prized treasures that tell them where they came from and help give many a sense of identity.
Making digital pictures from these albums will bring these memories out into the light again, a benefit that can be shared with family members and friends. Stories can be told and handed down to younger generations, text descriptions can be added and records made.
Here are my recommended steps for saving and sharing.
Storage. I highly recommend that any photos be safely stored in archival style plastic bags. Click here to see an example of acid free clear sleeves you can buy from Amazon. You really want to prevent any dust, moisture and sunlight getting to your pictures.
Sticky Albums, Get Them Out! If your pictures are already stored in photo-safe plastic sleeves or are attached to acid free paper then they can remain in the albums until scanning. However, if they are in what is referred to as magnetic photo albums or sticky albums that were popular in the 70s, 80s and 90s you need to act soon.
The sticky nature of the albums will eat away at your photos as they age, the acid in the adhesives will literally eat away at your photos. They also become very hard to remove once they age and become firmly stuck in place. When you see yellowing of the pages the damaging process is happening. The acids in the adhesives are working their way through the back of your photos and the plastic cover sleeve is trapping in the acidic fumes further damaging the front of the photographs.
Yellow pages are a warning sign to remove your photographs as soon as possible
Stuck Photos. Photos can become more firmly stuck by the adhesive as the pages age which means it can be very difficult to remove photographs without damaging them.
If the photos just fall off the page as your remove the plastic cover film then you have won the photo album lottery. If they are firmly stuck which is more common then you have a frustrating problem to deal with.
Getting Unstuck. You will need to decide whether to scan the whole page and then separate the page into individual photos using editing software. But if you want to try to remove them to get a better quality scan then there are several approaches. You can use waxed dental floss to work your way under the photo, starting from a corner. You can try a very thin craft spatula carefully working it under the photos. These processes take time as it is easy to damage a picture if you rush, so be careful. There are also adhesive removers like un-do and even techniques of using a warm hairdryer to slowly loosen the adhesive. All these techniques carry risk so be careful, old photos can be very delicate. I would strongly recommend not using a knife as old photos will cut easily.
Take Note of Notes. Make sure you make notes or take a photo of any notes on the album pages or even on the back of photos. If you have a lot of photos with writing on the backs of them then I would recommend taking a scan of the back as well. You will want to keep a record of who they are and of any dates which will help with archiving.
Create and Share Digital Scrapbooks. Once you have safely removed your photos from an old album and had them scanned it is important to create new digital albums or printed albums. ShutterScan offers online cloud storage through my photography website. From here you can share with friends and family and create digital albums. Through my website you can also download JPEGS, order prints and even create printed photo album books. A perfect gift perhaps! Cloud Storage & Sharing.
If you are daunted by the prospect of removing photos from an album, especially the sticky ones then let me handle it for you. This is an extra service that I offer. Carefully removing, scanning and replacing photographs back into the albums.
Just hand your albums over to me and let me take care of it for you.