how to save old b/w photos?

[strollingbones]

o suddenly i have literally hundreds of old photos...if i ever find that damn family album i will have hundreds more....now what to do with them?

i am thinking of how to keep them..perserve them?

can you have them all put on cd?

can they be mounted on acid free paper and saved?

anyone know?

 

[Madeline]

o suddenly i have literally hundreds of old photos...if i ever find that damn family album i will have hundreds more....now what to do with them?

i am thinking of how to keep them..perserve them?

can you have them all put on cd?

can they be mounted on acid free paper and saved?

anyone know?

You can scan them into the PC and upload them onto a photosharing site, such as Flickr. If you decide to do this, you'll have zero storage costs and zero chance of losing them. I'd suggest choosing a site that allows you a comfy level of privacy and do not upload any "nakkie baby on the bathmat" photos...they are no longer acceptable.

Just google "photosharing" and choose one that you find easy to use and which seems stable, and you should be fine. Lucky you, to have all these memories in your custody.

 

[strollingbones]

i want something i can hold in my hand....that is why i am thinking the cd...

 

[strollingbones]

o and another problem....i only have a little space left on this machine....

 

[Madeline]

Upload a few and then delete. Repeat as needed until all have been uploaded. It is probably best to do this anyway; even a new PC would lose too much memory if you leave the photos on your hard drive. My understanding is, once they are on Flickr you'll have sorting and editing options you would not have if they were only on your hard drive or a CD.

And it's free.

 

[editec]

Scan them at a very high resolutions.

300 dpi might be good. 600 dpi if you think you might want to print them later.

Then burn those images to DVDs.

I think mounting them on acid free paper is overkill unless you intend to frame them.

Your photos won't fox like old books do, incidently.

The paper they're printed on is very different than the paper that books and magazines are printed of. There's no acid in it, hence no foxing.

FYI, I make Rosetta's images on a Epson 15000, working that Epson scanning software in conjunction with PhotoShop.

One of the features of PShop is an routine that will make your collection ready to publish on line, incidently.

If course if you publish them on a website, you'll first want to reduce the dpi of the images (assuming you've archived them at high resolutions) so that they can viewed on the screen.

72 dpi will give you images on the screen at about the same size as the photo you scanned.

Higher dpi's (online) will make the image appear larger on the computer screen and give you a much higher resolution image, too.

Archiving collections like these is not really a difficult task if you have the hardware and software.

 

[Madeline]

editec, can you please explain how to crop? My PC came with Paint and I don't want to buy Photoshop.

Thankies.

strollingbones: your scanner will have a surface area of about 11 x 14. Anything you scan that is smaller will have white space in the uncovered areas. It'll look like this if you don't crop:

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[strollingbones]

ed you have mistaken me for someone who understands all that?

 

[California Girl]

Just as an aside, my brother bought me the one on the top right of this pic....

He put a bunch of family pics on it so it's like a modern locket. I can wear it around my neck and carry pics with me. I think that's cool.

 

[strollingbones]

*looking around for a scanner*

 

[strollingbones]

wellllllllllll so far yalll have been most helpful in confusing the hell out of me

 

[Douger]

DVD and CD's deteriorate over time. Put them on a flash drive.

 

[Dis]

wellllllllllll so far yalll have been most helpful in confusing the hell out of me

Take them in and have it done. IMO, whatever they charge you is well worth what you'll save in time. Start by contacting a place that creates videos for weddings, birthdays, etc. and go from there.

 

[Madeline]

ed you have mistaken me for someone who understands all that?

It isn't as bad as it sounds, Ma'am. The scanner will prompt you to change the resolution.

 

[Dis]

DVD and CD's deteriorate over time. Put them on a flash drive.

DVDs nd CDs deteriorate? How messy is YOUR house?

 

[Madeline]

DVD and CD's deteriorate over time. Put them on a flash drive.

I'd be afraid of losing a flash drive, Douger...and they aren't free. Is there a problem with photo sharing sites I don't know about? I need to be doing this myself.

 

[California Girl]

wellllllllllll so far yalll have been most helpful in confusing the hell out of me

Invest in a scanner. When you scan the pics, you'll be asked what resolution you want to store them as.... choose hi res. That gives you a print quality image. Then just burn them to CD. Back them up so you have two copies of everything - just in case the CD gets damaged.

My Mom saved all ours - and some videos - to a portable hard drive too.

 

[strollingbones]

wellllllllllll so far yalll have been most helpful in confusing the hell out of me

Take them in and have it done. IMO, whatever they charge you is well worth what you'll save in time. Start by contacting a place that creates videos for weddings, birthdays, etc. and go from there.

that i can manage lol

 

[THE LIGHT]

o suddenly i have literally hundreds of old photos...if i ever find that damn family album i will have hundreds more....now what to do with them?

i am thinking of how to keep them..perserve them?

can you have them all put on cd?

can they be mounted on acid free paper and saved?

anyone know?

Depends on how much you are willing to spend and how much the photos are worth to you. Some of the good inkjet photoprinters these days have 50 to 100 year lifespans on the printed ink which should last you long enough until some even more nifty technology shows up...

 

[strollingbones]

the photos are important to me....esp the ones in the family album...