Color photographs from the 1960s and 1970s are notorious for fading. Sometimes they are blurry. If you have access to photographs from this era that have not been scanned or preserved digitally consider doing so.
Don’t forget to put what documentation you can on the photograph itself. Even something is better than nothing–at least your name, where you got the photograph, and when you digitized it.
7 Responses
I know I need to do this. Do u know how long r current printed photos & documents will last ? Is laser better than regular ink jet printings? I don’t remember running across that kin oF information. Thank u.
If you can have a lab print your photos, Mpix.com has archival quality printing and they are not that expensive. My recommendation is scan if you can or take digital photos of your old photos. If you have photo editing you may be able to fix. If you are not tech savvy there are many places that can do this for you, as well as convert your old 8mm reels to digital.
My mom’s favorite picture of us three kids was fading, so I took a digital picture of the picture, then adjusted the settings so the saturation and contrast were up a bit. Looks almost like the original. She was delighted!
I agree this is important to do but I need advice about organizing and storing the digital images. My hard drive will give out some day and storage devices such as disks and external hard drives will get obsolete. I gues that leaves “the cloud” but what is the best way to utilize that???
How are you adding that comment section at the bottom of the picture?
I use Microsoft Digital Image. When I scan the photo, I leave a bit of white space at the bottom of the photo. Then I can add a text box to that space.
In Photoshop you can add canvas to the bottom of the picture and add text to that to write names and dates.