Let’s take a look at what the heck to do with your stacks of paper photos. We’ll examine how to display, share, and archive your paper photos. Here’s the secret, before doing anything else – have a duplicate of your photo.
Don’t feel bad, if you’re like the rest of us over the age of 25 or 30, you have at least one box of photos. It doesn’t have to be the monkey on your back.
Now, I’m not talking about your printouts of digital photos. I’m talking about good, old-fashioned photos. You know when you used to eagerly await that envelope from the film lab because you had no idea what the photos looked like?
It was like a beautiful (or horrible) surprise every time you opened that expensive envelope. We lost some of that mystery with the advent of the LCD screen, but to be honest, I don’t miss it that much.
It was a pretty expensive way to find out that your photos stunk.
Displaying Paper Photos
So we return to the question, how do you display those photos? The obvious display technique is to put it in a frame (preferably not in direct sunlight). I won’t touch on any more obvious techniques.
But, have you ever done any of these to photos?
- Tacked them to a corkboard
- Taped them to a wall
- Cut them out to put in a teeny tiny decorative frame
- Stuck them under plexiglass on a bartop
- Shellacked them to a piece of wood and gave it to Mom for Mother’s Day
Actually, I did that last one myself when I was 8. Those are all perfectly fine ways to display your photos. The problem comes in when you want a digital copy and realize that you cut/taped/tacked your only copy of that precious photo.
Having scanned thousands of photos, I’ve seen quite the array of poor storage and display techniques.
You can still scan the photos listed above (even the shellacked one), but you’ll either spend a whole lot of time in Photoshop to fix it, or pay big bucks for someone else to fix it.
Sharing printed photos
Ok, so the obvious one is pass around an album. If you’re really OCD, you can label each one and even put captions, but how many of us have the time?
Ever shared photos any of these ways?
- Pass the stack of photos
- Mail wallet size copies to the whole family
- Pass around the lab envelope, negatives included
- Stick them in a paper grocery bag and pass that around – no kidding
Yes, I’ve seen all of those. Passing the stack of photos gets some lovely finger prints on them. I highly recommend getting matte prints if you prefer to “pass the stack”. Matte manages to keep finger prints at bay. Although, big warning here, matte prints do not scan well at all.
Mailed the wallet photos exactly once. Too much work for me.
Passing the lab envelope seems to still be pretty popular. Ever try getting fingerprints off a negative? Better yet, did you get the envelope back with all the negatives still inside?
Archival and backups
The real key to displaying and sharing your printed photos is to have a backup copy stored safely. That way, if you ever need another copy, you can get it.
The copy can be a film negative, another print, or better yet, a .jpg file. Any of these can be easily duplicated. The .jpg file would, of course, be the easiest to store. It takes up the least amount of space and finding a specific photo is easy.
Storage systems for printed photos can be purchased at most office supply stores. The ones that worked best for me had little tabbed dividers upon which I could write the contents of each envelope.
Some times I didn’t have the funds for special boxes, so here’s my thrifty alternative. Turn your sticky notes upside down, so that the sticky side is on the bottom half. Write the contents of the envelope on the sticky note, stick it to the envelope and stick it in the box, in some order that makes sense to you.
Everything that touches your photos, be it a pen, a box, anything, should be acid-free to reduce fading.
If you want to get real fancy (or save space), you can purge the photos that were less than stellar. I never actually bothered. I have all my paper photos stored in boxes, in the order in which they were taken.
Next key. Even though it’s convenient, never ever store those boxes in the basement or attic. You may actually wind up with mold on the photos. Yuck.
As for the negatives, I’ve always kept them with the prints. Probably not the best method, but it’s the cheapest and easiest for me to find. Yes, I know they’ve probably faded, but that’s why I have Photoshop.
Make sure whatever your system for paper photos, you know where your photos are located. If someone asks you for a particular photo, and you can find it within 15 minutes, then your system is a success. Even if it’s messy and imperfect, it simply has to work for you.
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