I've sorted out a winter job for myself, digitally scanning stacks of old photos from loads of old albums. It's also an opportunity to clear shelves and get rid of lots of photos we don't want to keep, even digitally.
Oh well, here we go - the first album I'll tackle this afternoon is our previous house being built in the 1980s.
I ought to delete lots of digital photos too, we have far too many.
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As I've said to Mrs DJ before, once we both pop our clogs very little of our treasured things will survive the house clearance. A few nice ornaments perhaps and a few photograph albums containing pictures of people that no one can name.
"Thus passes the worldly glory."
One of our treasured ancient family photos shows a bunch of anonymous adults. The legend proclaims "The usual gang in our back garden."
And another thing. I once provided an offspring with links to lots of interesting events in the life of our ancestors.
"I don't understand; that's not our family name."
Said offspring had never internalised the family name of my father's mother whereas I'd grown up with it all around me.
DJ - we look at it like that. We'll make the effort knowing there will be limited interest after we are gone.
dearieme - we have a photo like your "usual gang". It's a group in Edwardian dress and obviously a large professionally taken photo intended to be framed, but no clue as to their identity. Our younger family members won't know family names apart from their own either. We could tell them but it won't be retained.
Don't forget the negatives.
Usually the best prints are given away.I
Get a good scanner that also does negatives. They are not expensive.
I did this about ten or 12 years ago and took the results on a laptop with me when visiting my aunts and uncles around the Kingdom. They were delighted. Recognised people from decades ago and their quirks. Even the homes and their decor are a glimpse into past fashions. Who could have thought that such wallpaper was attractive? Their grandchildren were highly amused to see their parents dressed in the fashion of the day.So well worth doing.
As a result I was able to borrow the photographic treasures of family and again share the results with all, thanks to the marvel of cheap, huge memory, thumb drives.
What became clear was that monochrome, black and white, prints and negatives do not age, whereas colour goes wonky. So by scanning and doing some simple colour correction they are saved while the originals continue deteriorating.
Do not skimp on resolution / file size thus enabling zoom in on faces.
Put as much information as you can in the filename which helps when doing a search.
Good luck.It is a relaxing way to pass the long winter evenings. And do a backup.
Doonhamer - interesting and yes colour does go wonky. The few black and white photos I've already scanned are definitely better than the colour ones. I don't have many negatives and many photos probably weren't very good to begin with, but I have a Canon scanner which is making a reasonable job of those I've done so far.
At the moment all photos are backed up MS OneDrive but I aim to buy an external drive for the laptop as additional offline backup.
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