I remember sitting with my grandmother and going through old photo albums with her and she would tell me who everyone is and share the stories. Having those books of photos seemed such a connection to a different place and time. One shelf in a cabinet had these precious books on it. They were cherished and well worn from use. Today we have a different relationship to photos. We use them differently and we have so many more of them. We tried to make scrapbooks to try to add in words so the pages of the books told more of the story. Now we have phones full of many thousands of photos, computers full, old computers full on and on. How do we deal with this in a new time? I will give you some of my ideas on the matter.

Old photo albums, the really old ones can remain intact. Previous generations had fewer photos in general so they need to be preserved. Get them scanned, we can do it without removing the photos at all at a $1.00 a photo, a great bargain to preserve such history. 

The sticky albums should have the pages photographed so any order is preserved. Then the photos carefully removed. Watch our youtube video on this. It isn’t always easy. The materials in these particular albums degrade photos very quickly.  Toss any duplicates and bad photos along the way. They are just not meant to be carried into the future.

 If your goal is to decrease the amount of you can scan and then put the photos into photo-safe boxes. Usually, many albums worth of photos can be saved safely in such boxes. Dividers can be added to help you sort and then find the particular photo should you ever need it. 

In our physical photo collection, we have a combination of a few things. Old photo albums from many decades ago kept intact, some scrapbooks and the photo-safe boxes. We are adding to that physical collection photo books. Which is a way to print your very best photos of a time frame or an event in a pleasing accessible way? 

Something we tell clients all the time is “some information is better than none”. When labeling your photos or your divider cards in your photo safe boxes, but what you know. If all you know is that “these photos come from an album given to you by your maternal grandmother” then put that. Even that little bit narrows down the possibilities of who is in the photos and where they were taken. What time-frame the photos were taken and where possible. Something is better than nothing!  If you need help with coming up with a plan we at Pixologie Digital Solutions can help. That is what we are here for! info@pixdsinc.com