September is Save Your Photos month. It is estimated that 1.7 trillion paper photos are stored in albums, attics and shoeboxes. Less than 1% have been transferred to digital. Save Your Photos Month is a public service outreach campaign developed by the Association of Personal Photo Organizers to teach individuals how they can preserve life’s irreplaceable photos, videos and documents, in case of unforeseen accident or disaster. I will be offering a special on photo scanning in September (so start gathering your print photos now) and re-offering the Organize and Safely Store Your Print Photo Collection course. You can learn more about keeping your photos safe at www.saveyourphotos.org
August Tip – Carry a Ziploc bag
Throw a Ziploc bag in your backpack. Use it to protect your phone or camera in sudden downpours.
Why Scan Your Print Photos?
1. Scanning your print photos creates a digitized image of that photo and provides a backup copy of the print photo.
2. Scanning your photos allows you to keep these pictures with your other digital photos and keep your entire photo collection in one place. This makes it easier to organize, manage, backup, share and use your photo collection.
3. You can easily share a digital copy of your photos with family and friends. Many people create online albums with their old family photos where family members can view and download these pictures. It’s an easy way to share the images and stories with family.
4. Having a digital copy of your photos lets you use them in modern ways – photobooks, social media, digital frames, etc.
5. Scanning your photos ensures you have a copy of the photo in it’s current state. The sooner you can scan your photos the better as the print photo will continue to fade and discolour over time.
6. Digitized pictures can be repaired to improve the images – scratches, spots, creases and tears can often be minimized or erased in the digital image.
7. Digitized pictures can be restored – faded images can be enhanced and colour corrected.
8. Digital images are easy to backup and recover should something damage your photo collection. They can be backed up in different ways making your pictures even more secure.
9. Seeing your printed photos as digital images allows you to look at them differently. You can easily reorganize them, label them and categorize them. You can view them beside modern photos and gain new perspective and insights (yes, my son looks just like his Grandpa did at 15!)
10. Scanning old family photos can be an easy way to ensure family stories and memories are preserved for future generations. Use your digitized images to reconnect with family and friends and share memories.
Scanning your print photos is safe and easy. Simplify and secure your photo collection; ensure your family memories are preserved to share with family, friends, and future generations.
2018 New Year’s Resolution Course – Organize and Safely Store Your Print Photo Collection
Do you have print photos tucked away somewhere? In photo albums on your book shelves? Boxes of albums in your basement? Are your photos loose in a shoebox in your closet? Don’t let those memories fade away! Now is the time to tackle your print photo collection – in just 4 short weeks you will have it under control and be able to find any picture you need in a matter of minutes! Anyone else spent more time than they care to admit looking for a baby picture for your kid for school?
Join us for this 4-week course which lays out all the steps to follow to get your print photos organized and stored as safely as possible. Once this process is done, it’s done! Our print photo collections don’t grow very quickly any more so once they’re in order it’s very easy to keep them that way.
This course will consist of lessons emailed directly to your inbox each Friday. Each lesson is packed full of information about organizing your photos and the process is broken down into a few tasks for you to complete that week. Each step in the process identifies several options so you can make the best choices for your system. By the end of the four weeks you will have your print photo collection organized and safely stored to minimize further deterioration.
The course will begin on Friday, September 7th. Registration is open now – visit the Contact Us page and let us know you will be joining us!