One spot that was affected is where I store all our old family photographs. It's a project that I have been wanting to tackle for a very long time. One reason why I want to move and change things around here is a fear of losing all our photos. As most of you know, my 89 year old dad has lived with us for over 10 years. To be blunt…he is dangerous! He's had several mishaps and we've had floods and the fire alarm goes off a lot. We've installed an Alzheimer's attachment on his stove and try to use automatic shut offs on most everything.
That being said, I need a different system for my photos. If there was ever a fire in the house and my family was safely outside, the first thing I would like to grab would be our pictures.
Here's where we store them now…
I just need your opinion on how you store your photos…
I store all our pictures in these photo boxes.
They are great! You just take the pile of pictures from that one event and store them behind the explanation card.
I was good with this for years!
I started in 1985 when my husband and I first met.
I was good until 2004. Then my parents moved in so we could take care of my mom, we had a major addition on the house, 2 kids, 2 dogs, 2 cats and life…
I went from the box on the left all neat and categorized…to the box on the right, literally just filing the envelopes of pictures in the box.
To be very honest with you, years back all those red envelopes were rolls and rolls of film I hadn't developed in a long time and did it all at once. Sad I know.
Well, times have changed and all our new photos are stored on tiny little memory cards, on the computer or on discs.
Here's my question to you…How do you store your "old" photos?
I want to accomplish 3 things
- I want to make each of my daughters an album of their own to take with them when they start their own lives
- I want to store all my original photos in a fire proof save
- and lastly, I want to get all my photos scanned onto a disc, memory card or the computer.
My original intent was to put my photos in albums again, because I can fit them in a fire proof safe. The boxes are great, but won't fit in the safe and when the kids reminisce and go through the photos, the pictures get messed up with the categories. I'm thinking albums are better to look through.
- have you scanned your old photos on your own and how long did it take?
- have you ever sent your photos out to a scanning service? I'm nervous about sending them all.
Thanks in advance for all your help,
~Karen~
I have been working on the same thing with the photographs. I have a friend who is a professional photographer. She says I can use my printer which is also a copier and scanner since it has 300 dpi for photographs
ReplyDeleteI'm scared multiple photos on the bed of the scanner and use Photoshop to break them apart. I then create pages which go into photo books. Are you shutter fly to create the books. They can be events or years. We do one for each vacation we go on I hope this helps you
ReplyDeleteI am thinking about sending mine to a scanning service as I don't think I have the patience to do them all by hand. ScanCafe has been recommended to me... I think I will try sending a small parcel of photos and I also need to transfer old movies onto DVDs. First I need to purge though... I have no idea why I used to keep every single photo. I guess because I paid for them?
ReplyDeleteSorry about the problems with the last post I have a cold. The computer doesn't recognize nasal. That should be I scanned it in. And I use shutter fly to create the photo books
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who had a fire when he was little and has no baby pictures, so that's always in the back of my mind. When my son was a baby, we put several baby pictures and film negatives (which was used then) in a lock box at the bank. We also put a few other special pictures in the lock box. It's an alternative to a home safe.
ReplyDeleteMy husband is in the process of scanning 45 years of family photos!!! into the computer and transferring them onto flash drives. We'll give a set of those drives to each of the three kids and keep a set in the safe deposit box for us. That's all I can think of as it's pretty overwhelming to store a life time of memories. My family home went up in flames and all I have from my childhood is a charred shoe box so I feel some pressure about this.
ReplyDeleteAt present the only thing I have done is to put all the negatives into a fireproof safe I have for important papers at home. A bank safe deposit box would be a good option for them also. At least then I know the pictures can be replicated fairly easily. This quick, easy step gave me much peace of mind until I can deal with the many photos.
ReplyDeleteI sent a large selection of my pre-digital photos to a scanning service. I was able to download them from their website and save to both my computer and my back-up. I also saved them to a thumb drive which is stored in our safety deposit box at the bank, along with a selection of negatives from our wedding photos.
ReplyDeleteCathy could you share the name of the service you used. I haven't found one that allowed the downloads. I have had two external hard drives fail. One was Western Digital the other was a Seagate so this option sounds like it would give me better peace of mind. Thanks
DeleteGood topic. All of our early photos on slides, so if you don't think that's a chore to scan. I bought one of those little slide scanner machines and have scanned about 600 photos but that was a couple of yrs ago and I haven't done anything since. I'm going to look into the service you mentioned and see if they do slides. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteMy husband and I sat down together for a few weekends and scanned whatever we had in the way of old photos. We tried to label and categorize them as we went. I scanned and he organized. For larger photos or paintings, my father and I have been taking pictures of them in case something happens to the larger formatted pictures. We try to keep our digital photos by date. We have some burned to CDs/DVDs which are then filed in a binder that holds just discs. That is in the fireproof safe. We also have a backup of all photos in the "cloud" somewhere. It took a while to back up initially, but now it only updates when new file are saved to the photo folders. I still plan on organizing them further, but we have a bunch of my husband's family pictures to scan and organize too. We want to do that before our parents are all gone and can't tell us who are in the old family photos.
ReplyDeleteGood luck! Just don't let it be too overwhelming... start small and just keep working at it when you can. It's a great thing to do on rainy days in front of the tv.
I agree, this is a timely topic for me too. My 'children' are young adults now and I've felt the inner pressure to get this project done this year. What muddles it a little for me, is that there was a divorce and it makes my previous role as 'family historian' a role I do not necessarily want anymore, yet I'm the one with all the photos. Looking forward to hearing how others have handled this too.
ReplyDeleteI'm overwhelmed with photos as well. I do love how neat your black storage boxes look. I have been afraid to start scanning 40 years worth of photos because I think it will eat up all of my time . I'm anxious to hear from your commenters who have already tried this. It's also hard to know what to do with all the photos already in albums...tear the beautiful albums apart, scan,, and try to put them back together? You really bring up a very timely topic...thanks! Cheryl
ReplyDeleteFunny yiu should ask...I just spent the last couple weeks putting old photos in the boxes likes yours. Can't believe how many I had and how many I tossed. Scanning would take a lot of time for all that I have...maybe someday.
ReplyDeleteAll of my mother's photos, grandparents old photos, etc. that my mom had in albums (falling apart), I took these and scanned them to a flashdrive which took a bit of time but was well worth it. Now they are saved and if my children want to make copies, they are ready. I actually made copies of this flashdrive to give to each of my brothers. The original photos will someday not withstand the everyday wear and tear but hopefully the flashdrives will. It's not hard....I did 11 big albums full of pictures in less than 2 days. Like I said.........well worth the effort. Good luck !!!
ReplyDeleteYou are soooo organised! I'm impressed, you make me think about where mine are. All over the place is the answer.!! Added to the 'to do' list!
ReplyDeleteThis is one project I've been meaning to tackle for years...yes years...I find it quite daunting...it's all those memories. I like your box idea though and I think it would make it easier and I could approach it in a practical manner! Thanks for sharing xx
ReplyDeleteI bought a stand alone scanner and put it by the phone or near my tv chair and I scan whenever I have the chance. Once I've scanned the original photo I actually ditch it! I know, hard but really, how many "hard copy" photos will we ever look at? I make back up discs and back up to my Picasa Albums too. But... the best advice I was ever given is to give duplicate photos and duplicate back up discs to other family members. They keep that safe somewhere for you and if anything happens to your original photos, you should be able to find what you need at your relatives house. I also own a negative scanner for all of my very old photos and once scanned, I also ditched the negatives. They don't "keep" that well anyway so much better to have the spare digital version somewhere.
ReplyDeleteI have all my old negatives in a lock box at the bank and anything digital is stored on an external hard drive. I lost a lot of pictures when my computer crashed but at least still have hard copies. Like you, I keep them in a photo box.
ReplyDeleteWe store our photos in photo boxes too. I have created several scrapbooks using photos of my son when he was little and I scan each photo and use the scanned one in the s/b and keep the original in the photo box. I started to scan our photos to sav them to the computer but it became so overwhelming that I gave up.
ReplyDeleteI made albums for each of my kids, and then thought... wait, I will have nothing for us. So then, I took a few months and made some partial albums for us to keep. Son moved out and didn't want his albums. I was like...really?! I have them stored in the top of a closet in hopes that he will one day want them. Another thought. After you have all those pictures on an external drive, you won't need to keep the originals in a fireproof box. Make a couple of copies to give out to folks, safe keeping and they can use it. You can put your own in a fire proof box, you can always make copies, no need for the originals. Also... as our technology changes, make sure that you update your way of keeping the photo scans. We used to put them all on floppies, then we transferred to hard drive, and now it is an external portable drive, dvd and thumb drives.
ReplyDeleteAt present I have only scanned my grandmother, grandfather and parents old B/W photo albums. The originals are with my older girl and the albums are back together again. My G/M had 2 albums and they were sort of mixed up so it was hard to put them in order when I scanned them. Grampa, Mum and Pop had good order but when we went through them she did not know who everyone was. I am glad we did this because she has since died and at least I know who some of the relatives are.
ReplyDeleteMost of my older pics are in albums and I am in the slow process of downsizing them. As for the scanning it took a bit more than a week. But put on a movie and do the scanning and naming. If you have information you could add that, as well as using the scrapbook method with cut outs, words and paper behind the photos
I have a very small portable scanner, very similar to this one: http://coolpile.com/gadgets-magazine/doxie-portable-scanner-syncs-files-cloud/
ReplyDeleteYou just insert the photo on one side and as it scans, it comes out the other side. I just had the scans save to a SD card. I scanned close to 2,000 photos over a weeks time. I did this while watching tv, so it is time that I was sitting there anyway.
Hi Karen - this post is right up my alley! I'm a personal photo organizer and memory preservationist. I've been helping people to organize, display and preserve their family memories for over 12 years. I am associated with the APPO (Association for Personal Photo Organizers). I work as a specialist sub-contractor for a Professional Organizing company and I have my own personal clients. You are on the right track, here are some things to consider. First, make sure your print photo boxes are photo safe. The boxes you buy in the big box craft store that are called card and photo boxes are NOT. You will pay around $25 per box for the safe ones. I used to use boxes by Creative Memories called powersorts - they were safer for long-term storage than just about anything. Only polypropylene plastic and certain high quality compressed boards are safe for long-term storage. cM is now out of business. NOTE: the term "archival safe" can mean nothing. It is not a terminology that has been assigned any real meaning and can be stamped on just about anything. Also - boxes with internal divided containers make sorting much easier as the long pile of photos don't fall over when the box is not full. I now use a box by Linea Legacy which can be purchased from any APPO affiliate. Second, YES SCAN. I recommend doing it yourself. Why? Because for the most part, your 300dpi scanner will do it just fine. Also because then you can name each individual photo with a name that makes sense and you can change the date of the photo to be correct. You can also edit and sort and organizing photos while you scan. Get a good photo organizing and editing package. I use Historian by Panstoria (I am an affiliate and there is a link on my blog to click thru to give me credit for the purchase). Historian costs $40. Very cheap for all that it can do - it is desk top resident software, has a one-computer license and is an incredible piece of software. It is PC based so not for MAC users. Most of my MAC customers use iPhoto. Other PC users have success with Windows Picture Gallery (I believe free) and Picasa (free unless you want more fancy features and then is pay). When scan companies scan for you most send them out of house - yikes. Also, they just assign the current date and a numbered jpg filename - then you have to go back and sort them all yourself anyway, not worth the cost. Historian allows you to put a bunch of photos on the scanner at once and then save as individual jpgs. Very easy and doesn't have the HUGE ticket price of photoshop software. Next, display. If you want to make multiple copies of the same album, go digitial! There are many drag and drop photo options like shutterfly and snapfish and blurb etc... Beware, a lot of these albums are not quality bound and the design process is very simple. If you want a temporary album with only the basics in design - go that route. Sher (continued)
ReplyDelete(continued from previous comment) Here are more options (message above was too long for one post answer): Design online with Heritage Makers Studio (I'm also an affiliate with them) and get a quality stitch bound end product. OR... if you are a control freak (like me), use a design software like Photoshop to create your own pages from scratch. I use Panstoria's Artisan software package. Again, it's desktop resident, PC-only (sorry MAC people), costs $40 with a 2-user license and is the most insanely powerful design program without the pricetag or difficult learning curve as photoshop. With Artisan, you can create any size product and upload it to any print publisher. I use Heritage Makers and Panstoria Print Center - both use Utah Print Solutions for their digital printing, very high quality with stitched bindings. For "traditional" albums, there is scrapbooking and "scrapbooking lite." Ahni & Zoe offers pre-designed albums in quality strap-hinge coversets. Close to My Heart offers post bound albums and a world of scrapbooking supplies. I hope to soon be using products (due out this April) from previous co-founder of Creative Memories (Rhonda Anderson) who is developing her own line of quality traditional albums under the new brand name "Memories for Life," being developed by the company Youngevity. Remember, quality is EVERYTHING when it comes to photos, cheap crappy albums will not hold-up over time and will not keep your photos safe! There is also hybrid album making, photo slide shows, custom framing, photo gifts, photo canvases and a ton of other ways to display, preserve and keep your family memories safe and enjoyable. If you have more individual questions contact me personally (cmsher@gmail.com). Sher
ReplyDeleteOne final note about photo safety - store things in at LEAST two places, one of those places should preferably be OUT OF YOUR HOUSE. For instance, my digital photos are organized in Historian Memory Vault and backed up on my external hard drive - one that is stored away from my laptop but still is at my house. I also export the digital folder structure to windows folders and put that on another external hard drive which is stored at the bank on my safe deposit box. I update it 1-2 times per year. I update and backup my regular vault and shadow copy vault every time I download a big batch of photos from my camera and phone. NOTE: sd cards are NOT acceptable for long-term storage, they are temporary! Another solution is a cloud storage service. Depending on the amount of your photos, you could use Google Drive or Drop Box or some such or contract with a service like Carbonite. Just read the fine print on how to get your items back in your possession if you want to change providers or such. Photo Printer companies often allow you to store photos on their website as long as you print with them every so often, but many charge you for a full-sized copy of your original photo once it's on their website. Also - if they go out of business, bye bye photos. For storage devices you have to stay up on current technology. Things like cds and dvds may one day be obsolete, so keep an eye on when you need to switch to a new storage technology! You should use cd-r or dvd-r for long-term storage (the gold more expensive ones are even better). Don't use a cd-rw or dvd-rw. Same risk with EHDs (external hard drives) and USB drives, they are not a perfect solution so always have more than one backup. If you don't have a fire safe, or safe deposit box or cloud storage, at least put one of your digital backup at a friend, family member, neighbor's house for safe keeping. As for your current photo albums that had photos that were never scanned, make sure they are in PHOTO SAFE albums!!! or remove the photos. AND... consider scanning whole album pages, or buy a wand or hand scanner to do the trick. Check the APPO website, there are a ton of companies that will contract with you (for a hefty price) to store and keep your photos safe for like a 100 years and pass along those photos to your family members and transfer them to new technologies, etc etc... there are so many choices out there that it can be overwhelming. For me, that's kind of a good thing because it's how I make my living! Best of luck with it all. Sher
ReplyDeleteLate to this party but... yes, I have personally scanned photos to store onto a disk. It took me two full weeks - ten days of about six hours-plus, a day - with our Canon printer/scanner sitting beside me at the computer, to scan 2,247 photos that I burned onto one disk. I made four copies: one for each of our two children; one for us; and one for the safety deposit box. It was a huge task, but one I absolutely do not regret doing. We no longer have 18 photo albums, nor photos of scenery that in the long run were meaningless. Everything is digital now, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
ReplyDeleteEven later to the party....I scanned my own slides and photos for a year on my own. But I wasn't thrilled with the results and I was also reminiscing a lot so it took longer than I had allocated. I finally got smart and outsourced it. At first it was scary sending my precious pics in the mail so I did a small batch the first time. But the CDs was awesome (you can also order an index booklet for future reference) and the photos came back in no time at all. Now, I've had them scan over 4000 photos with wonderful results. The prices aren't cheap, but for me it outweighed the time commitment. I originally used a Groupon coupon so if you find that, it could be cheaper or you can get on their email list which advertises deals frequently. Their company name is FotoBridge. (I wasnt sure how much I should write about them, without sounding like a commercial so feel free to email me if you want more info)
ReplyDelete