Organising photos

lessonlearned

We've done a combination of scanning and albums so far. We've kept hardcopies, as well as spare discs in addition to those actually on the computer itself. A bit 'belt and braces' I know but photos are irreplacebale. (I remember seeing how upset people were who had lost photos in last years floods).

The ones that have still to be sorted out are in cardboard photoboxes, with dividers which have the year marked on. I'm aiming to make photo-collages with some of the spare photos and display these on the walls. I've seen photos displayed under glass on coffee tables, which looked very effective.

We did 'posh' albums for each of our children's 21st birthdays, including photos of ancestors as far back as we could go - great, great grandparents and so on. We added little notes about who they were and where they came from, dates of birth etc. - a sort of potted family history/Who do you think you are/This is Your Life'. (It took ages). After the family history bit we put their own photos into themes - baby, schooldays, friends, hobbies, holidays etc. - leaving a few blank pages for them to fill in themselves.

The albums are made of leather.We bought them in Costco, about £15 I think. Not the cheapest photo album you can get but they do look good and make a handsome special present.

I didn't think they would be very impressed by the idea but they were thrilled with them. Friends who have seen them were so impressed they asked if we minded if they copied our idea for their childrens' 18ths and 21sts.

Gers

Patchwork_Quilt wrote: »

Wow! All I did was put mine into those flip albums. They don't take up much space. However, I'd be interested to hear about scanning them. How long did it take?

Just depends really on your patience, the scanner and how many you have. Each one took only about 15 seconds or so. And then if you want to edit them afterwards it takes a few minutes. Straight scanning is just fiddly, a tad boring but very rewarding. You can do one photo at a time or fill up the scanner bed with a number of them (not that I'd recommend that as you then will have to do some more fiddling later if you want to use just one). I did them in batches

I made folders with various names/categories and sorted them that way. All my Dad's army service photos I then donated to his particular regimental museum. The museum was really grateful to receive the photographs as they showed active overseas service from the early 1950s.

More documents have now been scanned in too - useful for university essays and 'important' but old stuff which just clutters up the place.

Good luck in whatever you decide to do.

Wee_Bargain_Hunter

Boots seem to have a permanent sale on their photo albums.

Your box idea could always be stage 1 of trying to get all the photos into some kind of order.

There is a professional range by Arrowfile that was recommended to me by a salesman in Jessops. You choose an album and then choose refill pages to go inside it. The beauty of the system is that you can buy refill pages to suit you eg some refills are for say one a4 photo while others are for 4 normal photos. Some of the pages have even more slots for older ie smaller photos. You can swap the pages around as you get more organised without damaging the photos. One tip - if you have writting on the back of the photos, then go for the see through refill pages not the black ones. If you sign up to their newsletter then you will get offers, otherwise discount codes/offers are in hobby mags etc - got a code from a plane-spotter mag once! Discount codes are not usually listed on sites like this.
EDIT: This link explains their system better than I can

[Deleted User]

As an amatuer genealogist please, please, write on the back who the folk are and if possible the date s years help no end if you are keeping them.I have lots of photos that I know are relations that I can't fit into my tree as I'm not sure of their exact provenance.

Redlady.....

Does anyone have any ideas of what you can use to clean dirty marks off old photos?

Butterfly_Brain

Redlady..... wrote: »

Does anyone have any ideas of what you can use to clean dirty marks off old photos?

A good photo editor like photoshop (Expensive) or Picassa 3 from google (Free)

LMB1980

I think you should have a go scanning them and putting them into photobooks. All my photo from the days before digital cameras were put into different albums as they were developed but they take up so much space. Lately I have been printing the last few years worth of digital photos into photobooks from photobox and bonusprint. i'm over the moon with them as the take up hardly any space. You can fit a lot of photos into a thin book. At the moment I'm making separate books for special occasions - weddings, holiday etc and then the rest of the photos from that year, I'm making them into a book for each year, with the photos in chronological order. I've made a few photobooks as gifts and added comments under the photos and they have been very well-received. Someone also suggested using digital 'quickpages' and dropping photos onto them. This is also a great idea for a gift. If you stuck to the same size quickpage you could then get all the quickpages printed into a photobook too.

Redlady.....

Thanks for the advice.
I think those photo books look fab.

Mojisola

Gers wrote: »

Scanning is the way to go! We've now got every single photo scanned and saved onto a portable hard drive/a memory stick and a CD so that they are safe. Chucked out the hard copies. It took some time to get over the emotional attachment to some photos (and have kept some of the very old ones) but it certainly freed up a whole lot of space and helped in the decluttering process enormously.

As a family historian, the idea of lots of people doing this fills me with dread! You might have your photos stored safely for now but what kind of media will your descendants be using in 50 or 100 years? Will they still be able to access your photos?

As you have kept some of the old photos you have, think of future generations and get some photos printed out, label them and store them safely. Your great-grandchildren will then be able to treasure photos of you!