Your ideas re: photo organization/storage

[petesgirl]

My mom has HUNDREDS of family photos from our growing up years (6 kids to document!) and most of them are just floating around in boxes, along with about 30 rolls that she still needs to develop. I have decided to tackle the organization of them this summer..but need ideas!

We want them stored safely, but also accessible. It seems like a lot of photo albums are so bulky, and she liked the idea of photo boxes so that you can take a handful of photos out and pass them around. I am actually leaning toward the smaller plastic albums that only hold a 100 or so photos...

Any other ideas? best place to purchase supplies? best/cheapest place to develop film?

Also-I totally get that scanning them into a computer would be best, but that will take way more time than I have right now and we will still need to solve the issue of organizing all the prints.

[larig]

A word of caution about albums you chose...they can speed up the degradation of the photos, and if you take the time to put the photos IN them, then if you decide later to have them scanned by a service or do it yourself, you'll have to take them all out again. I'd consider paying a service to scan them or start doing it yourself, and then, find archival boxes to store them in, and not worry about the albums. Boxes are a perfectly legitimate and safe way to store photos--they stay out of the light that way, and if you keep them in a non-damp, climate controlled room (not a basement), like a closet you'd be doing them a favor.

I'm the unofficial family archivist (and an amateur genealogist) for our family, and I have to say after working with photos from the early 1900s to present, and the ones in the worst shape are the ones from my childhood in the 1970s. It's so odd, but they're the ones you should really get scanned before they get worse. Something about the chemicals used at the time that seems to not be holding up well.

I've been slowly scanning an album here and an album there for the past year, and I can do an album pretty quickly. I'm taking the photos out of the albums they were put in, because they are causing a speedy decay of the photos--those sticky-backed photo albums are the WORST culprits, and my mom LOVED them. with good software (not necessarily the software your scanner came with) you can put four or more on the scanner bed and the software will automagically scan, find the edges and save the photos individually, so you don't have to just do one at a time. (I recommend the software VueScan which works with MANY many many scanners, even old ones.)

[petesgirl]

A word of caution about albums you chose...they can speed up the degradation of the photos, and if you take the time to put the photos IN them, then if you decide later to have them scanned by a service or do it yourself, you'll have to take them all out again. I'd consider paying a service to scan them or start doing it yourself, and then, find archival boxes to store them in, and not worry about the albums. Boxes are a perfectly legitimate and safe way to store photos--they stay out of the light that way, and if you keep them in a non-damp, climate controlled room (not a basement), like a closet you'd be doing them a favor.

I'm the unofficial family archivist (and an amateur genealogist) for our family, )

Cool, thank you! Maybe we will go with the archival boxes then. Maybe you can help me with another issues--she has some rolls of film from the 80's that aren't developed and we are worried that the quality of the photos may be poor--is there anything we can/should do before developing them that could help? Or after they are developed, is there anyway to enhance quality from the negatives?

[MontrealMum]

Cool, thank you! Maybe we will go with the archival boxes then. Maybe you can help me with another issues--she has some rolls of film from the 80's that aren't developed and we are worried that the quality of the photos may be poor--is there anything we can/should do before developing them that could help? Or after they are developed, is there anyway to enhance quality from the negatives?

I'm an archivist. I do some preservation as part of my job, but it's not my specialty. You can find some useful information on photographic materials from the National Archives here (http://www.archives.gov/preservation/formats.html).

As for your question, there's not much you can do if the film has already degraded, which is a distinct possibility. A good photo editing program might help enhance anything you end up printing, if you do get anything to print at all, but not significantly. The biggest worry with things like unprocessed film and old negatives is the temperature where they've been stored. Heat is extremely detrimental to that type of media. If it's been very hot, you may not get anything back at all.

Larig has provided you with great information above. The only thing I'd add is that you want to make sure that your prints are stored flat, not standing up, unless they're sleeved and/or mounted on something stiff to give them some integrity. There are a lot of "photo boxes" out there that are sized for prints to stand rather than lay flat. Carr-McLean is the industry leader in archival supplies. If you want to be really serious about it, here's their page of items for photographic storage including "safe" albums: http://www.carrmclean.com/CategoryGroupBrowser.aspx?CategoryID=160

[infomama]

Check www.scandigital.com
we have used them before (slides) and have been pleased with the results.

[petesgirl]

I'm an archivist. I do some preservation as part of my job, but it's not my specialty. You can find some useful information on photographic materials from the National Archives here (http://www.archives.gov/preservation/formats.html).

As for your question, there's not much you can do if the film has already degraded, which is a distinct possibility. A good photo editing program might help enhance anything you end up printing, if you do get anything to print at all, but not significantly. The biggest worry with things like unprocessed film and old negatives is the temperature where they've been stored. Heat is extremely detrimental to that type of media. If it's been very hot, you may not get anything back at all.

Larig has provided you with great information above. The only thing I'd add is that you want to make sure that your prints are stored flat, not standing up, unless they're sleeved and/or mounted on something stiff to give them some integrity. There are a lot of "photo boxes" out there that are sized for prints to stand rather than lay flat. Carr-McLean is the industry leader in archival supplies. If you want to be really serious about it, here's their page of items for photographic storage including "safe" albums: http://www.carrmclean.com/CategoryGroupBrowser.aspx?CategoryID=160

Interesting. Thank you! The film has been stored in a cool basement so the heat shouldn't be an issue, but I am worried about degradation over time. And just curious--why should they be stored flat vs standing up? All the archival boxes I have looked at so far, they are stored standing, so I will have to check out your website.

I am just realizing how awesome it is to live in the digital age!

[larig]

Interesting. Thank you! The film has been stored in a cool basement so the heat shouldn't be an issue, but I am worried about degradation over time. And just curious--why should they be stored flat vs standing up? All the archival boxes I have looked at so far, they are stored standing, so I will have to check out your website.

I am just realizing how awesome it is to live in the digital age!

flat will keep them from bending. if they are stored vertically, they will curl

and truly archival quality storage has passed the PAT test.
http://www.archives.gov/preservation/family-archives/album-types.html

and this explains more about storing.
http://www.archives.gov/preservation/family-archives/storing-photos.html

(these are specific links to pages from the first link MontrealMum linked to). She really knows her stuff (she's a pro!!), do whatever she says and you'll be in great shape.

ETA: albums are fine, but like I said, I'd scan first, then put in albums. You want to handle them a minimal amount. And you can get cheap white cotton gloves to help keep finger prints off. I bought like a pack of 10 for $4 or something on amazon. I use when I handle old family photos and documents.

[MontrealMum]

flat will keep them from bending. if they are stored vertically, they will curl



Photographs eventually become brittle. If they're stored flat, you can always scan them, and they'll always be flat. It they curl due to being stored vertically, you will not be able to flatten them to scan or put in an album at a later date because they will crack. Some will crack so badly that parts of the upper layer will chip right off.

[petesgirl]

Photographs eventually become brittle. If they're stored flat, you can always scan them, and they'll always be flat. It they curl due to being stored vertically, you will not be able to flatten them to scan or put in an album at a later date because they will crack. Some will crack so badly that parts of the upper layer will chip right off.

That would be sad :( Thanks for the help!