(continued from Part 3) HOW TO GET STARTED PRESERVING OLD PHOTOGRAPHS: The first step is to identify what the pictures show, because only photos that are identified and labeled are worth preserving. Sometimes it's best to start with your most current photos and work backward in time. Note what's going on in the picture, who's in it and where the photo was taken. Date the photo as closely as you can. Write the information on the back of the photo with a soft 6B drawing pencil, which is available in art supply shops. Be sure to use people's real names if you know them, not just associations like mother or grandfather. For home movies, write the identifications on the leader. Note when it was shot, by whom and what the event is. Home movies can be very difficult to identify. If possible, sit down with the person who made the movie, ask them to narrate it and take notes. Many people have old photos in their collections that are often unidentifiable. You often can't say with certainty whether the person shown is a family member. Set the pictures aside and work on them last. Put your energy into the ones that can be identified. After you've identified the photos, work on storing them properly. There are two primary ways to store photographic prints - using a filing system in archival boxes or using photo albums. Use file photos in archival boxes if you have a lot of photos to arrange. You can organize the pictures in files by subject, person, or year. Once the pictures are organized, you can pick the best and put them in an album. It's important to use acid free folders and boxes. The acids in paper products can be harmful to photos. Albums allow you to display pictures more easily, but also tend to be more expensive than filing. Some of the best pre-made albums are manufactured by Webway, a Minnesota company (do a web search for "Webway Photoalbums"). Again, seek out acid-free papers and notebooks made from archival board. Or you can buy clear plastic pages made from polypropylene and insert the photos. Do not use vinyl pages or notebooks. They emit harmful vapors and shorten the life of photos. In general, don't take apart existing photo albums. They're like diaries and scrapbooks; they have a personal story and order to them. Often they contain the handwriting of the person who made them. If the photos in an old album have become loose because of detached or missing photo corners, replace the photo corners. The exception to the "don't take apart rule" is magnetic photo albums. They contain a sticking material that is detrimental to photos, and they need to be taken apart. People buy them because they allow you to easily arrange photos on a page, but photo corners allow easy management too. Slides can be stored in boxes or carousel trays if you keep the lid on; they are very susceptible to dust, light, and extreme heat or cold. Non-vinyl slide pages can also be used. And if you have slides, photo CDs, home movies, or home videos, be sure to save the hardware that you'll need to view them. You'll need that equipment to enjoy your images, when the technology becomes obsolete in the future PRESERVING NEGATIVES: It's very important to save your negatives. Many people think negatives are a nuisance, but they are the originals and they'll allow you to make new prints if a print is destroyed. Negatives last well if they're not handled. Keep them in polyethylene or polypropylene sleeves. (A word about scanning photos, slides, and negatives. Scanning photos, no matter how high a resolution you use to scan, will almost always appear "grainy" if you increase their size beyond that of the originals. Slides and negatives, on the other hand, have such a high resolution that you can scan them and increase the size of printed pictures without degrading the quality. As an example, if you scan a 5x7 photo and increase its size in your computer graphics program to, say, 10x14, to print out a very large picture, it WILL be "grainy" and have no "sharpness"; scanning the negative from which the photo was originally made will allow you to increase the size greatly without degrading the quality of the picture.) Exposure to light can hurt photos. Locate framed pictures on the least sunny walls in your house. Better yet, make a copy of the photo and keep the original in dark storage. Metal frames are preferable to wood (wood contains acids). Use a 100 percent rag matte board and remove any wooden backing used in old frames. Dark storage is especially important for color photos, such as children's school portraits. Some studios do not process them properly, making them more susceptible to color changes. Since they come in multiples, display one and keep one in storage. If it changes color, have a black and white photo made. The absolute best film to use, if you want your pictures to be around for your grandchildren and their children, is black and white. Most color photos fade over time. If black and white pictures don't seem appropriate or possible, then take color prints or slides. Prints have the advantage of being easier to view, and they don't accumulate dust as much as slides. Instant pictures are good for parties and games only. They're likely to disappear in 10 years, so when you're going to document an important event, leave your instant camera at home. If you're going to purchase a digital camera for photos, make sure it will take pictures with a HIGH resolution and in large sizes. Older digital cameras, and newer inexpensive ones, usually took pictures of very small sizes and resolutions. You can't take a graphic from one of those cameras and increase its size beyond about 3x5 inches. Copy photography is the way to save the images on torn or defaced photographs. A basic rule in photograph preservation is to leave the original just the way it is. The copy photographer uses retouched copy negatives or copy prints to bring back the image. -------------------------------------------------------------------- I hope this will help some of you with your photographs and documents, both old and new. Regards, SgtGeorge George W. Durman -- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 7.0.225 / Virus Database: 262.2.1 - Release Date: 3/5/04