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Topic: old photos - what do you do? (Read 588 times)
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KathMc
RootsChat Aristocrat
 Offline
Posts: 2620
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Another idea is to get the originals into a fireproof box if you can. Better safe than sorry. I hope you will eventually share some of the more interesting pictures with us. I love old pictures. and the people on the photo restoration boards can do some amazing things with some of the old photos.
Kath
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Sligo: Davey (also Mayo), McCluskey, McNulty
Wexford and Staffordshire: Hayes, McClean
Galway and Staffordshire: Scott
Coventry: Wells, Collins, Palmer, Moody, Beck, Mickelwright, Husbands
Ireland: McNulty (Sligo), Kealy, Murphy (Carlow) Connolly, Gillen, Powell, Ryan, Moore, Martin
Davis from I don't know where originally
Stahl, Russia to England to USA
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Jane Swan
RootsChat Aristocrat
Offline
Posts: 1989
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Hi
I too have many old photos from the 1950s to present day. Some are headless, footless etc but I still don't like throwing them away!
What acid free products are you using? I have had a quick look but all seems very expensive which is OK for the best but not for the hundreds of not so great snaps.
Maybe you are just so muchmore organised than me. I have great ambitions for the winter to get everything organised but family trees seem to have so many different paths it is hard to know what to concentrate on.
What is a fireproof box? I also have photos from 1890s etc. Where do I get one from? Are there places to store photos on remote servers so that they are safe? What happens when the technology/format changes? Can you imagine if you had everything on betamax video now days? and that is only 20 or so years ago.
Instead of answering your questions I am just asking more!
Jane
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Notts: Burrows, Comery, Foster, Beeson, Haynes, Swan. Derbys: Burrows, Comery, Smith Lincs: King. Warks & Salop: Swan, Duffy. Dublin: Duffy, Geraghty, Burgess. Monmouth: Lewis Information contained within Census Lookups is Crown Copyright: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk |
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KathMc
RootsChat Aristocrat
Offline
Posts: 2620
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A fire safe box is a metal lock box kind of thing. You can buy them at most Target type stores. One is also supposed to keep their valuable papers in them (deeds, passports, birth and marriage certs -- yours, not your dead relatives  , etc). I have not gotten off my duff and gotten one, so maybe this will motivate me to do it.
Kath
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Sligo: Davey (also Mayo), McCluskey, McNulty
Wexford and Staffordshire: Hayes, McClean
Galway and Staffordshire: Scott
Coventry: Wells, Collins, Palmer, Moody, Beck, Mickelwright, Husbands
Ireland: McNulty (Sligo), Kealy, Murphy (Carlow) Connolly, Gillen, Powell, Ryan, Moore, Martin
Davis from I don't know where originally
Stahl, Russia to England to USA
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PrueM
Moderator
RootsChat Marquessate
Offline
Posts: 6065
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Hi folks 
Have a look at the links on this topic and see if they are helpful:
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,66915.0.html
Basically, if you are serious about keeping your photos safe, you should store them in archival albums or boxes that have passed the PAT (Photographic Activity Test). Just because something is called "acid free" doesn't mean that it is archival! It only means that the product was not acidic when it left the factory!
There are plenty of cheap ways to store your old photos if you are not particularly fussed about presentation. I used albums from an Australian company called Albox, into which I can put plastic sleeves of various pocket configurations to fit all sorts of different sized photos.
One more thing, I wouldn't put my faith in a fire-safe box...I have seen the results of photos stored in so-called fire-safe boxes and safes, and it's not pretty...while they protect the contents from the flames, they act like an oven and cook the contents instead
If you would like any more info just ask
Prue
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Paper and Photograph Conservator
I live in NSW, and am researching:
BALFOUR (Derry) – BIGG (Kent) – BONSALL (DBY, NTT, CHS) – BRISBANE (Fife) – DANKS (STS) – DOBSON (BRK) – FRANCIS (ESS) – GOODE (HAM) – HAYNES (Cork) – INGRAM (MDX, SOM) – LANGWORTHY (Jersey, DEV) – MCKAY (Fife, Aberdeen, Banff, Moray, Inverness) – MORRISH (LND) – NANCARROW (CON) – OGILVIE (Moray, LND) – STRATHDEE (Banff) – SWAN (Fife) – WOOD (LND)
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ludovica
RootsChat Senior
Offline
Posts: 275
Genealogist
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I made the mistake of scanning all my pictures at a resolution suitable for web pages. After becoming familiar with Rootschat I now realise I need to do them all over again (except I dont have a scanner anymore) 
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Suttonrog
RootsChat Aristocrat
Offline
Posts: 1277
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Sara,
If you are going to scan them, then scan at the highest resolution you can and then save them as .tiff file. Tiff files are large and take up a lot of space but there is no degradation. Jpegs take up a lot less space but they are compressed and lose detail. Everytime you open a jpeg and then save it again it loses even more detail until you only have square blocks of pixels.
Keep your original Tiff files in a separate folder and back them up to separate CDs or DVDs and keep them in different locations. Save your restorations as jpegs but you always have your original tiffs to fall back on if you go too far.
Rog
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Suttonrog
RootsChat Aristocrat
Offline
Posts: 1277
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I'll try this and see if it works.
The first image is a scaled down version of the original which was scanned at 1200dpi (don't worry it would never fit in the 500kb limit we have on this board.
The second image is a selection of my aunt (middle on the front row). On the left as in the original 1200 tiff file, on the right still at 1200 as saved as a jpg. I hope you will be able to see the degregation.
Rog
It worked
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 ci_1.jpg (83.95 KB, 591x444 - viewed 110 times.)
vi.jpg (86.58 KB, 586x325 - viewed 112 times.)
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oldtimer
RootsChat Aristocrat
Offline
Posts: 1960
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Hi Rog!
What a fantastic tip! I never knew anything about that! Looks like I am going to be very busy over the weekend re-scanning all my photos.
Thanks! 
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