Most folks have a few old photographs of some type … early Kodak black & whites, postcards, cabinet cards, maybe even a tintype. If you have old photos of your ancestors, here's the catch … do you know who is who? Did someone take the time to identify at least names if not dates and/or places? If so, count your blessings!
If you have photos that aren't identified, but YOU know who it is … please get them identified ASAP … future generations will thank you. At a minimum, use an archival pen (not ballpoint) to write any info you know on the back of the photo. I like to use Micron pigma ink pens – they are soft-tipped and the archival ink is perfect for acid-free environments.
You can take this identification one step further and assemble your photos into albums scrapbook-style. For your originals, photo corners work well as the photos get no adhesive on them and can easily be removed. Many folks recommend making copies of your originals to use in scrapbooks; those can be attached directly to your pages with acid-free adhesives.
Please, please, please tell me you do not have your photos in the magnetic photo albums – those things are nasty. Mom was ahead of her time when it came photo albums. She made personalized albums for my sister and me years ago that chronicled the events of our lives – if made today they would be called scrapbooks. Unfortunately, magnetic photo albums were all the rage back then and that's what Mom used.
Working slowly and using great care, I was able to remove the photos without too much damage, although I did have to use un-du Adhesive Remover on many of the photos to get them to release from the sticky album pages. Mom had typed the comments on her old Underwood typewriter, and I was able to match a computer font to the typeface and recreate her comments. I even copied the few typos just to maintain authenticity! By following Mom's page layouts in an archival quality photo album, my niece and I were able to surprise my sister one Christmas with a copy of the album Mom had made for her. Moral of the story … there is hope if you do have magnetic albums … but I recommend taking action sooner rather than later.
Next post, I'll discuss ways to share photographs and the benefits of doing so.
3 comments:
The pictures from the early years of our marriage are in those magnetic albums, I haven't taken the time to get them out yet. Recently, I pulled one out to scan to put on my blog. The scan came out poorly, it looked like it had lint all over it. The picture looked fine, so I thought maybe the scanner had lint in it.
A couple days ago, I pulled another photo out of the album to scan, this time on a different scanner. Same thing happened, it scanned like it had lint on it. I carefully wiped the photo off, and scanned it again. That's when I realized what must be happening. The magnetic pages of the album must be leaving a residue on the photos. It's not visible to the naked eye, but shows up when scanned.
It's good to clean your scanner glass fairly often just to make sure there isn't anything that will transfer onto the scans. Did you try using your photo software to clean the scan? If you want, email me one of the files & I'll see what I can do with it in Paint Shop Pro. It's amazing what can be done ... a little time consuming sometimes ... but well worth it to save valued photos.
They scan ok once I make sure they are wiped off well, (and carefully!). I just wanted to point out that this seems to be another problem with the magnetic photo albums, that they seem to leave a residue.
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