This past week I was back in Michigan for a visit with Mom who was having surgery. Surgery went very well, and Mom is doing great!
I came home with some vintage and antique photos. Eventually I will share some of them.
For now, I have to go through the process I use for all these photos.
- Scan each photo, using the scanner attached to my computer. I originally bought it for business, but it’s just a simple home scanner. I scan them into .tiff so that the best quality is preserved.
- The originals are then put into acid-free clear (plastic) sleeves and sometimes then into acid-free photo boxes for storage, preferably in a fire safe (locked file cabinet that can withstand fire up to a certain temperature).
- Then I use my zamzar.com account to convert the .tiff files into .jpg. Jpeg is easier to use as I wish because it’s a very accepted file type. Each new jpeg has to be downloaded to my computer individually. This takes a bit of time. Zamzar is the best program I have found for file type conversions, and it is well worth the subscription.
- I create appropriate folders and store the .tiffs and the .jpgs together in the folders.
- Photos from the 60s and 70s sometimes need a little TLC as they are already turning yellow or even brown. I use Picmonkey not because it’s better than photoshop (it isn’t), but because it is extremely user friendly and doesn’t take up too much time.
- I create another folder for each new folder. These use the same folder names, but add the term “watermarked.”
- Then I use Water Marquee to create a watermark for thefamilykalamazoo.com and watermark one full set from each “watermarked” folder.
- At this point, I have both watermarked and unwatermarked jpegs for sharing.
That’s it! Then I’m done. What is your process for saving old photos?
From a Joseph DeKorn glass negative
Adrian Zuidweg (Grandpa) on the right
The dog is Bobby
The Family Kalamazoo 
That’s quite a list. I think I’d better study it because I don’t think I am as careful!
The quiz will be tomorrow morning at 10AM EST.
You win, Luanne…I thought I was doing good to categorize my old family photos and put them in ziploc bags with labels, but now I see how it really should be done. Geez Louise, as the Red Man would have said. That’s quite a process. I am in awe. Truly. You are my inspiration.
LOL, it’s no competition! OK, seriously, NO ziplocs! You need to invest in acid-free bags. you can buy them in “bulk” online. The ziplocs will ruin your photos. bad bad bad. The acid-frees either come with a little adhesive strip or just a sleeve or bag without closure. You can use scotch tape to tape them closed because the tape is on the outside of the bag, not inside with the pic (tape of course is usually not acid-free). The thing that makes this easier is that there is a lot of acid-free out there because scrapbooking was so popular for awhile. If you don’t want to digitize them, of course, that takes away most of the steps. The most important step is Acid-Free. The second would be digitizing so that if they are lost or in a flood all is not lost–plus that is the way to share with many others :)!
Alright, Luanne, you have shamed me into digitizing…should I scan on printer and then transmit to my computer or take pictures with my camera and send them? I really would like to add them to my tree on Ancestry.
Yes, you should, although I am now wishing all mine on Ancestry were watermarked. Yet another project.
My ignorance is showing. Is the watermarking basically to show ownership of the images? I have lots of precious photos that I haven’t worked with yet. And by photos, I mean that I’ve taken pictures on my iphone of actual paper prints, and those paper prints are actually paper reprints of the original photos. So watermarking I’m guessing is a way to label them prior to posting, etc? Thanks for the education!
Marilyn, I started watermarking because I discovered that once photos are online people share them around. Then they get “lost” from the data you provide about the photos. I found some of my photos on a tree on Ancestry.com assigned to the wrong people!!! I figure if they are watermarked they can always be traced back to the source. I haven’t done them all and didn’t start until further into this project, so I still have work to do in that regard. Always more work :/.
It would help if people would always cite a source if they use photos found online. Will have to look into watermarking. Thanks for relying!
There are several software companies that do adequate watermarking. I first used another one (can’t remember which), but Water Marquee has been simple to use.
Will check it out.
Excellent list of things to do. I love the photo, it reminded me of “The Little Rascals”.
Jose, thank you for mentioning the photo. The more I look at it, the more I love it. For one thing, why is that cart so long?! Is it made for children or something appropriated from adults? Who got the dog to pose? Who is the other child and is it a boy with a Dutch haircut or a girl? I agree that it reminds me of The Little Rascals! Pretty cute pic!
The one message I got from this post is I have to get to work on my photographs. I think I will have to invest in a new scanner as the one I have is way too slow. It takes about 2/3 min.to scan each picture, Then the editing and cropping takes up more time. This could make for a winter project. Well maybe two winters worth of work.
Charles, that is a long time for a scanner to work. My scanner is about 9 years old and wasn’t expensive (for what it is). But with the right setting there is no cropping as the photos are scanned as what they are, border to border, if that makes sense. And it takes 15-20 seconds, I am guessing. I find that doing each step in bulk is less time consuming, too. So if a batch of photos need editing work I don’t do it at the time of scanning–for another reason is that I scan into .tiff and don’t want to alter the “original”–but in .jpg format before watermarking. Good luck!
This is very useful information. I need to do a lot of scanning and saving. Good to know which programs work well for you.
I am in love with zamzar. To not only do images, but videos, music, pdfs and other documents. Amazing!
I’m almost embarrassed to admit how disorganised I am with my photos. So thank you for posting such a clear account of your process. Now I just have to get moving on it! 🙂
Good luck, Su!
My process of saving old photos is to learn from you!
Luanne, I thought that you could only watermark your own photos that you personally had taken, I know on the website for lost Kalamazoo, you can not put on any pictures that were taken by someone else, without giving them full credit for the picture in the first place. A lot of old books that have pictures of Kalamazoo, say that you can not use their printed material in any way shape or form. So when I get pictures from someone else or out of books , yearbooks what ever I always, put down full credit for them. I guess the next time I talk to my attorney I will ask about photos. Family pictures, that were my parents are now mine, so I am safe there. Not trying to make any big deal, just want to know the right thing to do. Thanks for sharing info and your 100% right on the picture saving, I am forever telling my family and friends to get your photos out of those old old picture albums and invest in the non acid, you won’;t regret it. I have thousand of pictures and most of them are digitized and the rest in albums with not acid folders for 4 x 6’s and 5 x 7’s and a few 8 x 10’s.
Take care and thanks again for your input on the photos.
Hi Paula, I don’t know any rules for watermarking photos. The point of that is to identify the place you have posted them where someone can find any crediting information. Most of the photos I watermark are family photos that have been passed down to me, so in effect I own the photos, although of course they belong to my entire family. That said, copyright law as you probably know is very complicated and maybe a professional photographer actually owns a certain photo. But realistically even museums and larger sites than mine are posting vintage and antique photos online. As far as posting photos of other people’s photos or from books, I have been told that if I take photos of them with own camera or phone and then post that, that it is my own photograph :). You are REALLY up on things with taking care of your photos, Paula. I am so impressed. I wish I was organized as it sounds, but I have so many more photos that need work!
I’m glad your mom is doing so well. Also it was interesting to learn your process for preserving old photos. You inspire me to do a better job.
Well, thank you :)! Yes, I am so pleased that she is doing so well! Yay!
I’m glad your mom is doing well! How fun to bring home some old family photos. I wish I were as “start to finish” as you when I process photos. I literally have thousands upon thousands of photos so I scan at the Family History Center when we don’t have any patrons. Then I deal with the photos one at a time when I have a minute. I edit out any dust, tears, or scratches in photoshop, save an edited .tiff, retain the original .tiff, and save as a .jpeg. I also size down a copy for use on FS and one for my blog. TIFF for FS, and .jpeg for my blog. All edited .tiffs go into flickr, costco photo center, FS, my ancestry tree, and a special album on FB that only my family can see. Then I store the files on thumb drives and an external hard drive. I will probably NEVER finish. 😂
You have such a great system down, Amberly. Better than mine, really, and you are lucky to have the facilities at FHC to use. But I do like the start to finish method as much as possible because otherwise I would have nutten to use in the meantime ;)!
🙂 I don’t know about mine being better, it’s just how I do it.
LOL
This has been so helpful thank you. I scanned a load of old photos in about 20 years ago and have lots more to do now, but technology etc has moved on. Useful hint about TIFF and Water Marquee. I use picmonkey already.Thanks 🙂
I love that little winking monkey on picmonkey ;). But zamzar, too. Wow, that is a fabulous program.
Very precise methodology, carefully explained. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Stephen. Now I need to figure out how to get more safe filing drawers for my photos!