Photos are gateways to a flood of memories. There’s nothing like that nostalgic trip old pictures can take you on. Gaze at a photo of you and your friends set out on an adventure a long time ago, a pic of family time on Christmas day or your high school sweetheart on prom night. It’s not just that one instance you remember, it’s all the memories and feelings around it. These are things worth preserving.
How to Preserve Old Photos
There are four conditions you need to take into account for preserving old photos: Temperature, moisture, lighting, and ventilation.
- Temperature – Cooler is better. The lower the temperature the slower the rate of chemical decay and the longer your pictures will last. Temperature fluctuation can also cause curling and warping.
- Moisture – High relative humidity (above 65%) is a perfect condition for mold growth and too low relative humidity (below 15%) can lead to drying out and brittleness. Like temperature, the lower the better and avoid places where humidity will fluctuate.
- Lighting – Darkness is good. Overexposure to light and especially sunlight can cause photos to fade.
- Ventilation – Good air circulation will fend off mold growth.
So, where and how should you preserve them? Your ideal location is cold, dry, well ventilated and dark. Straight away, discount the attic, garage, and basement. Basements and garages can be too damp and attics too hot. Try to choose somewhere that is stable room temperature or below and a safe distance from heat sources and vents. Closets, cabinets and under the bed are ideal locations because they’re accessible and dark. Once you find the right spot for keeping your photos, you’ll need to protect them even further with boxes, photo albums or envelopes.
Taking care of your photos takes a little bit of work and know-how. You’re looking for something that will ensure your photos stay dry, protected and won’t damage them over time. Plastic containers are useful because they do all of those things. However, you still have to be on the lookout for acid-free materials and stable plastics to ensure the best way to store old photos.
You can organize them in envelopes or even a shoebox as long as it’s in a water-proof container.
- Keep them flat. Use stiff material that will keep them level and discourage curls and bending.
- Don’t cram them into a small box. Make sure there’s space but not too much as they can move around a lot if you want to move the box. Non-acidic tissue paper can be used to fill the space if necessary.
- Non-acidic dividers can help keep your photos from sticking together and while it might seem a bit tedious in the beginning, they can keep your photos safe in the long run.
For photo albums, there are some differences.
- Get acid free sheet protectors.
- Avoid adhesives as they can degrade image quality.
- Keep everything level and fit into sleeves in a tidy and efficient manner.
- Overstuffing can damage the spine of the album.
Digitization
Digital preservation is far from as complicated as it used to be. The main two ways are scanning the photos or by using a camera. There’s plenty of free and paid apps like Google PhotoScan, Helmut Film Scanner, Photomyne and Office Lens that assist with phone camera scanning. They each have their positives and negatives but with a little care can create great pictures. If you have a load of photos to go through and want to avoid using your smartphone, you can purchase a flatbed scanner or a photo scanner. Using a scanner that isn’t designed specifically for photos may however put your original at risk, especially if they are in a fragile condition already. [iii] If you want to avoid the DIY aspect, there’s plenty of services that will digitize your photos for you. Once you digitize them, for even further protection than having them on your computer you can upload them to the cloud or put them on an external hard disk.
Art
Learning how to store old photos don’t have to be all about the methods above. Turning them into art is a fun way to preserve them and help enjoy some of your favorite moments time and time again. It’s easy enough to transform your photos into wall art. If you already have them in digital form, you can upload them to canvas prints templates and have them printed in a range of sizes. You can create collages with multiple photos and arrange them in all manners of patterns. Make your favorite picture part of your mantelpiece as photo blocks. Although you might not be able to display all your old photos like this, it’s a good combination of seeing the picture more frequently and preserving it.
Keeping your treasured memories safe and secure does take a bit of work, but it’s definitely worth it for those feelings you get looking at an old photo. Whether you’re keeping them safely stored and acid-free under your bed in a plastic container, turning them into nostalgic wall art, uploading them to the cloud or doing all of the above, your old pictures are definitely worth the time you spend preserving them.
With a background in psychology and sociology, love of football, literature, travel and music, Aonghus had always tried to be trendy, but then the trends changed.
