Family Photos - Priceless Memories at Risk

Family photo collections contain priceless images that bring back vivid memories of family joys, milestones, trips, and other moments deemed worth preserving.

With changes in technology, the "bad news" is that many families now have combinations of photos in older acidic and deteriorating albums, loose photos and transparencies in multiple boxes, and a ton of digital images on a hard drive or CD. This mix of formats is enough to lead many of us to inaction, which places many of these family photo images at risk.

The "good news" is that these very same advances in technology have created the means to easily consolidate, organize, and more broadly share your priceless family photo images.

Clearly a well organized digital image library of family photos provides the greatest opportunity to take advantage of online services and software that can easily and inexpensively create slide shows, photo books, collages, image gift items, and a dozen other satisfying ways to share family photo memories.

As a first step to consolidating older prints or slides into a digital image library, it is necessary for someone to scan the print or slide. Many families hold the view that this is something they should do at home. They then become challenged with the lack of technical expertise, or by not being able to find the time necessary to get organized and to actually complete the scans.

It is clearly easier to have someone perform the scans for you, and there are well established services that will complete your scans for you with little preparation required on your part. A little culling of bad or duplicate prints can save you some money, but you can simply send a shoebox without any sorting or culling. The cost of these services is very reasonable when you consider the benefits of preserving your priceless family memories and the value of being able to creatively use the digitized images in a multitude of image projects in the future. The cost of having your scans done professionally is very inexpensive when considered against the potentially high cost of doing nothing.

To get started, it is not necessary to send your entire collection to be scanned. Although volume discounting is available, it may actually be easier to get your head around sending a few old prints to a professional scanning company to satisfy yourself about the level of service, the quality of scans, and the reasonableness of pricing. To better understand the services and pricing of a couple of the major scanning services, visit ScanDigital and ScanCafe.

It is likely that once you get started, momentum will build. I am confident that once you have begun to create a consolidated family photo digital image library, you will see a range of expanded sharing possibilities that will excite you.

For more information about organizing, preserving, and sharing family photos, visit http://www.localarchiver.com/.

Family History Month - Genealogy Research Service Free Trials

Both interest in genealogy and the sophistication of available research tools continue to expand.

As more record databases become available to be searched via the Internet, subscription genealogy information search services have become more productive. At the same time, these services have become much easier to use, and many have begun to use software to automatically identify links in database information that were difficult for individual researchers to make in the past.

Family History Month is a good time to consider exploring some of these online services. Two of the most widely used subscription services offer free trial periods of 7 to 14 days. To make the most of your free trial periods, sign up when you know that you will have some time available to adequately explore the services to see how productive they might be for your family.

Two of the leading genealogy research services are Ancestry.com and OneGreatFamily. Both offer free trial periods to give you the opportunity to explore their databases and overall research capabilities. After the trial, if you are happy with the progress you make relative to your family's history, you can decide on exactly how long you would like to extend your subscription. Both services offer monthly, quarterly, and annual subscriptions.

Many of the emails I receive about sharing and preserving family photos and documents are from people who have taken an interest in a family genealogy project. They often come to realize that family photos and documents add considerable color to raw name and date facts. In many cases, they quickly recognize that organizing, preserving, and sharing historical family photo and document finds is important to their overall satisfaction in the project and in coloring and preserving the rich family information they are gathering.

For more information on organizing, preserving, and sharing historical family photos and documents, visit LocalArchiver.com

Family Photos and Family History Month

Around the country many celebrate October as Family History Month.

What better way to celebrate than by dragging out some of those neglected shoe boxes, drawers, and old albums full of photos reflecting your family history.

Family photos are often the most tangible images we have of our family history.

Our sense of place and personal identity are often reflected in these family photos.

With many children back in school and before the hectic holiday season is upon us, this is also a good time to start a project to better identify, organize, and cull these family photo images. This project does not have to be completed in one sitting, and any progress made is a good thing.

Family photo organizing projects can be very intimidating. However, once started, most people will find that any progress will feel good, and that momentum can easily build.

Once some decent progress is made in identifying, culling, and organizing old prints, you are on the path to many creative image sharing opportunities using online digital image services.

Celebrate family history month by bringing out the old family photos and walking down memory lane with the rest of the family. Before you put the photos back where you store them, take some time to identify, cull, and organize at least a few. You will be happy you did.

For tips on culling, organizing, and sharing family photos, visit LocalArchiver.com.

Organizing Family Photos - Getting Started

Most people will admit to the need and desire to get their family photos under better control. Many will also admit to being overwhelmed by the thought of such a project.

This sense of need for better photo organization is often based on a desire to more broadly share our photo images with friends and extended family. If only we had our photos better organized, we could produce those impressive photo books, collage posters, and image based holiday and greeting cards we have seen our friends make. Still many are paralyzed at the thought of organizing, scanning, and labeling all those images that have been accumulated in boxes and on our hard drives.

Complicating the task, and another cause for procrastination, are the challenges of learning about ways to combine family photo collections that include prints, digital files, and in many cases slides and perhaps video film.

The key to making progress is to simply get started. This process is a bit like going to the dentist. It is not likely to hurt as much as you fear, and just think about how good you will feel when you have the project behind you.

Three key organizing tips to keep in mind.

1.) Eliminate Images that Hold Little Value - It is likely that much of what you have collected over time has lost much of it's importance. We tend to keep all the photos taken at a particular event even though some are clearly better than others. Remember that the memory of the event is normally more important than any one particular image. With the passage of time, perhaps one good photo of your first car is plenty. Likewise, unless you married your prom date, with the passage of time, the prom photo has clearly become less important.

If you start your organizing project by eliminating images that are truly bad and/or have little present value to your collection, it becomes a much easier task to properly cherish, organize, and share the best and most highly valued images that remain. If you head into the project with the intent of applying the 80/20 rule, you will likely find that 20% of the images hold 80% of the interest/value or that perhaps only 20% of the images actually deserve to be organized and shared.

2.) There is Considerable Help Available - Driven largely by the evolution of digital technology, it has recently become much easier to creatively organize and share family photo images. A good first step is to consolidate print and digital collections . Once family photo images are in digital file format, it becomes quite easy to accomplish many family photo sharing projects at home or online. Family photo history books, custom greeting and holiday cards, photo collages and posters, and spectacular family photo wall groupings are only a few clicks away with the help of sophisticated online services.

In order to create your consolidated digital family photo collection, it is possible to have your prints scanned professionally at a reasonable cost. Simply place prints of varied sizes into a provided envelop or box and send them off to be scanned and returned. Visit ScanDigital and/or ScanCafe to preview and try their services.

3.) Any Step is a Good Step - Take a moment to think about how you might feel if your photo collection is lost in a disaster or simply becomes a burden to whoever may ultimately tidy up your estate.

You do not need to complete the entire project all at once. It may be best to simply grab one of several boxes of family photo prints or one deteriorating album and organize these images. Perhaps send out one of several potential batches of prints to be scanned in order to take a positive step and to see how the service works. If you do not have the time to start a large project, make it a series of smaller projects.
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For more tips and suggestions, read Tips for Sorting and Culling Photos and Documents at LocalArchiver.com

Family Photo Framing - Easy and Inexpensive

Most of us have some place on a wall in our home that would be perfect for an arrangement of family photo images of special memories or places. Finding the right frames to properly display these images can be intimidating as there are so many choices at the local framing shop and on the Internet.

Many museums use frames with simple clean lines when displaying collections of images in order to focus attention on the images themselves and to provide a sense of unity with other matching frames.

This approach can be used very effectively in creating a wall grouping of favorite family photos. Reasonably priced archival quality frames are available with pre-cut mat openings.

To develop ideas and explore the possibilities, visit the framing area at Blick Art Materials. When exploring the framing area, be sure to take a look at Blick Art Materials' selection of Nielsen Bainbridge Archival Gallery Frames. Another good source of reasonably priced ready made and custom frames is ArchivalMethods.com.

For more tips and ideas on creating a wall grouping of favorite family photos, see the article on Using Family Photos in Stunning Wall Displays at LocalArchiver.com.

Family Photo Storage - Some Major Environmental Factors

Despite the good intentions of many families to better organize family photo prints, stacks of photo prints are often stored in unfriendly environments.

Until they get around to organizing the photo print collection, it is useful for them to understand that some things can be done quickly and easily to prolong the useful life of the images.

Most deterioration of the paper, pigments, and binders used for older prints is attributable to chemical reactions. Therefore, any effort to minimize or slow these chemical reactions is helpful. The attic, basement, and garage are simply not good places to store photo prints.

Major environmental factors related to these locations include:

Temperature - Museums strive to maintain temperatures of roughly 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Although it may not be possible to control temperature as precisely as a museum, the further outside of a human comfort zone, the greater the risk to your collection. Extremes and dramatic swings in temperature damage the paper and other materials in photos and documents by accelerating chemical reactions and/or by expansion and contraction.

Humidity - Museums typically strive to maintain a relative humidity of 50%. Particularly in combination with temperature extremes, humidity both initiates and accelerates many chemical reactions. High humidity can also create an environment conducive to mold and mildew, a situation that can cause rapid deterioration and irreversible damage.

Pollutants - Pollutants include a broad range of substances or objects that cause or accelerate chemical reactions, or create an increased risk of abrasion or other surface damage. These pollutants include dust, smoke, fumes from cleaning materials, chemicals and acids present in improper storage materials, and many glues and tapes used to mount and display images. Even fumes being created by natural chemical reactions in unventilated storage can accelerate other chemical processes. Clean storage areas, reasonable ventilation, and proper archival storage materials reduce the risks associated with most pollutants.

Pests - Insects and rodents may choose to take up residence in certain types of paper. Worse yet, they may perceive the collection to be a food source. The best way to avoid pest damage is to periodically inspect the collection in order to detect and resolve a pest problem early.

Exposure to Light - Museums go to extraordinary lengths to control exposure of collections to certain types of light. Many types of lighting, particularly direct sunlight, impact chemical reactions of the different materials that may be contained in displayed objects, and fade or discolor images in a meaningful way. Careful placement of displayed images, rotation of collections, use of special lighting, and day-to-day display of duplicates, are some of the many techniques used to control the level of exposure to harmful light.

Therefore, at a minimum, photo print collections should be stored in areas of the house that feel comfortable to the home owners. It is better to store the prints in a closet than in an attic, garage, or basement, as the temperature and humidity is likely to be closer to museum standards and more consistent in the closet. It is also important to eliminate obvious pollutants such as paper clips and rubber bands. Use of proper storage materials such as acid free envelopes and boxes will also help to prolong the useful life of the prints.

For additional tips and resource suggestions on family photo and document storage, organization, and image sharing, visit LocalArchiver.com.

Organizing Family Photos - Hysterical Preservation and the 80/20 Rule

With limited time and budgets, families and others hoping to preserve a historical heritage in photos and documents often have a difficult time drawing the line between what is important to preserve and what can be preserved.

Many preservationists have been referred to as "hysterical preservationists" when they appear to take the position that most or all things historic should be preserved. The "hysterical " approach is often criticized as spreading resources and attention too thin, to the detriment of truly special and unique objects of historical significance.

I believe that the same debate can be applied to family photo and document collections. If a collection consists of boxes of photos or "keepsakes" in an attic, there is a decent probability that someone named in your will could be even less motivated to sort and cull the image collection than you are.

On the other hand, if you approach a culling and organizing project as an application of the 80/20 rule, it is much easier to make some decisions and real progress. In a recent culling project of family photos around our house, we tossed about 80% by volume of our old prints.

We determined that uniqueness and mediocrity were the most obvious criteria. We simply decided that we did not need to keep all of the mediocre shots of a trip to the Grand Canyon in 1975. A couple of the better shots of us with the canyon in the background were sufficient to recall a memorable trip in our younger years. Likewise, multiple shots of a young child in a Halloween costume could be easily reduced to the single best shot.

Uniqueness and historical significance can also be measured differently over time. Historical photos of people may only have had significance to the people in the picture at the time. If people in a picture were engaged in some activity that has historical significance, perhaps the activity is the uniqueness to future generations.

In any case, the person who is culling, sorting, and organizing images is likely the person most qualified to judge uniqueness and historical significance. Keep in mind that you are not just sorting and organizing the collection for yourself, you are also helping those who will inherit the images in the future.

If based on the best judgement of the sorter, roughly 20% of the collection ends up properly sorted, organized, and captioned, the most unique and historically significant photos and documents are much more likely to survive and be shared into the next generation.

For more suggestions on culling and organizing photo and document collections, see the article on Organizing Photo and Document Collections.