What you don't see can hurt your photos!

A photographic image looks like something that will last forever, but even the most modern prints are not designed to last for more than a few decades. Black-and-white photographs, made up of light-sensitive silver salts known as silver halides, last longer. But color photographs and slides, which are made up of dyes and plastics, are more fragile. Still, any photograph will eventually succumb to the effects of a hostile environment – and a host of natural enemies.

The Bad Guys

A Word of Hope

Preserving photographs, which are organic and temporary by their very nature, may seem like an uphill battle. But with smart decisions about storing and displaying your photos, it doesn’t have to be. Follow the tips in our next article and you’ll be that much closer to making your photo collection last a lifetime.

Family photos are priceless. Like a memory, a photograph is a frozen moment, stolen from the grasp of time. A collection of photos is a visual history of your family, your friends, your life.

Most of us cherish our photos. That’s why we keep them safely stored in the attic, the basement, under our beds or in a drawer. If we’re really ambitious, we put our favorites on display, either on the wall or in photo albums or scrapbooks. But are they really safe?

Keep These Valuables in a Cool, Dry Place

Un-insulated attics and basements are the wrong answer. The extreme temperature and humidity swings in an attic will make your photographic paper crack, and the moisture of a basement is often off the relative humidity scale. In case of disaster, the basement is the first place that gets flooded, and the attic is bound to go up in smoke.

The key is to find a cool, dry area of your home that is protected from violent changes of temperature. The ideal climate for photos is below about 68º Fahrenheit and under 50% relative humidity.

If that sounds a bit like a safe-deposit box at your bank, you may be right. Especially for one-of-a-kind photos, there is no safer place. But it’s not a practical choice. Your photos will be safe if you store them in a cool, dry area of your home.

Showing Them Off

Most of us love to share our photos. We use them to decorate our homes, offices and cars, or we put them in scrapbooks and photo albums that are easy to show off. But we need to be careful.

Before you hang that photo on the wall, make sure it’s safe from the sun. Direct exposure to sunlight can cause your photographs to fade in just a few years. If there’s no other option, you can either buy a special filter to protect the image, or just hang a copy on the wall and keep the original safely stored.

If you’re into scrapbooking, be highly selective. Most photo albums should be avoided like the plague. Even some materials marketed as “archival” contain acids, adhesives, rubbers or other materials that will eventually destroy your photos. Your best bet is to visit here to see true archival photo albums.

If preservation is more important than presentation, consider storing your photographs in special envelopes, safe plastic sleeves or an enameled-steel storage cabinet. Those treasures are worth the effort and the expense.

Save it Forever with Digital

The best way to save your valuable photos may be by eliminating the paper altogether. Consider making digital images of all your photos. Unlike emulsion-based prints, digital images don’t fade, erode or crack. In theory, they’ll last forever - or at least as long as we have access to the right technology. If you choose this route, you should consider storing a backup copy off-site. Several options are available on the web.

It’s a lot easier to wipe off a CD or download your backup than it is to repair a pile of images damaged in a flood or fire... Whether your house was flooded or caught fire, your prized photos have probably suffered from water damage. The first rule of handling water-damaged photos? “Don’t Panic.” You may be able to salvage many or all of your pictures. You might want to contact a photo conservation professional or consult a book on the subject, but here are a few tips:

1. Don’t let the photos dry out! As your photographs dry, they will stick to each other and any other materials they may be in contact with. You’ll find it impossible to pull them apart without causing potentially irreparable damage.
2. Get to work as soon as possible. Your photographs shouldn’t stay wet for more than two or three days.
3. While you’re working on your photos, store them in a container full of cold, clean tap water. The colder the better. Don’t add chlorine to the water, but change the water every day. The chlorine in tap water is enough to prevent the growth of fungi and other biological threats.
4. Rinse your photos in a container of cold, clear running water. Don’t run the water directly onto the photos, because that could damage the chemical emulsion, causing permanent damage. Keep rinsing them until the run-off water is clear.
5. Carefully remove your photographs or negatives from the water, taking the smallest quantity possible. Pull them out of their wrappers and gently separate them. DO NOT FORCE THEM APART. Separate as many as possible before returning them to the cold water and starting on another batch. Repeat the separate-soak cycle as many times as necessary. However, sometimes you may not be able to separate materials without forcing the issue. In those cases you will probably have to just accept the corresponding damage.
6. Once your materials are separated, store them in water until you can wash them individually, using cold, clean running water. use cotton balls, a soft cotton cloth or a soft foam rubber brush to remove foreign objects if needed. Rinse your photographs or negatives one more time after cleaning is complete.
7. Hang-dry prints and negatives from a clothesline. Make sure they will not be exposed to dust. As an option, special solutions are available that facilitate uniform, spot-free drying when applied to negatives and slides. These solutions can be purchased from your local retail photo lab or dealer.
8. If your prints curl while drying, wet the paper side (NOT the emulsion!) with a moist sponge and place each one between two pieces of acid-free paper or photo blotters, and leave them under a flat, heavy object for a day or two.

Even if you follow these instructions, some of your prints will probably suffer permanent damage. In that case, bring them to us to find out which photos can be restored. You’ll be surprised!

Precious memories last forever. Unfortunately, photographs do not. Photographs capture a moment of time to keep those memories alive, using a fragile blend of organic materials and modern technology. But as you’ve learned in this Handbook, photographs aren’t made to last. No matter how careful you are, it is practically inevitable that some of your cherished photographs will eventually fall into disrepair.

What’s In a Photo?

The nature of photographic prints has changed often since the advent of popular photography in the mid-nineteenth century, as tintypes, daguerreotypes and sepia prints have given way to the advanced color prints of today. Still, any kind of photographic print is nothing more than a collection of minerals and chemicals that react to light. Any number of factors can cause your images to fade, discolor, stain, crack, peel or fall apart.

When Holly Brooks found the heirloom photo her mother had loaned to her in the bottom drawer of the hall cabinet, snapped in half, she couldn’t hold back the tears. Mounted on a type of cardstock that had grown brittle with time, it was the only image of her grandmother as a little girl, posing with all her cousins. At first she wanted to take it out on the kids. But instead she decided to ask for help.

Digital Technology Changes the Rules

Holly was relieved to find that her image could not only be patched back together, but also restored to its original luster. Not the original photograph, mind you, but a digital image. An image that would last a lifetime. An image that could be printed over and over.

Using digital technology, the experienced restoration artists at companies like Photo Metro work not with the original photo but with a digital copy. They use advanced software to fix whatever may be wrong with it. The final image can be burned on a CD or printed as a photograph on an archival printer. That means it will last a lifetime – probably even longer than the original.

When Holly saw the outcome of her photograph, she cried again. This time they were tears of joy. It was so beautiful she ordered copies for her mother, her brothers and sisters, and her grandmother’s youngest sister – the only surviving person in that photograph.

Worth Every Penny

If disaster strikes your cherished photographs – whether it be in the form of flood, fire, professional movers, ultraviolet rays or two-year old daughters – there may be hope. Modern technology has made it affordable to restore your priceless photos.

This page last updated on March 02, 2011