Slightly OT (off topic)

Aloha All,

Just a brief note here to share with you a wonderful honor I received today.  As you may or may not know, I have been volunteering my services to a non-profit organization, Operation Photo Rescue, for over a year now.  There are about 700 photo restoration artists worldwide who volunteer for this organization which was created in the aftermath of Hurricane’s Katrina and Rita.  Please check them out at operationphotorescue.org if you get a chance.  I wanted to share with you the wonderful notice I got today, telling me of a “mini traveling show” that OPR is undertaking.  They will be exhibiting a limited selection of “before & afters” that best exemplify the kind of work we’ve done.  I’m thrilled to say they have chosen one of my pieces to be exhibited.  This isn’t the reason we do this volunteer work of course.  Restoring people’s precious images they once thought lost forever is the REAL reason.  So it is “gravy” as my son would say, to be recognized in this way.  Here is my “before and after” they will take on the road…………………………………………………….

Many thanks to all of your for your continued support.  It enables me to continue this kind of work.

Much Aloha, Merrilee

First things First (or baaaad photo albums) Part2

Here are a few things you can do to try to get those stuck-on photos out of the baaaad magnetic photo albums. In order…
1. Gently see if any of the corners will lift. Sometimes once you get a corner up the rest will come with gentle encouragement.
2. Unwaxed dental floss has been known to separate the photo from the back board, but don’t force this or it will ruin your photo.
3. There’s a great product readily available at craft stores, scrapbooking stores and even the craft section of Walmart. It’s called “Un-do”. It’s a thick liquid in a squeeze bottle that desolves the glue that the photo is stuck to. It comes with a little tool to help lift the photo enough to put the Un-Do underneath it. Let it sit a bit and see if you can get any further, repeating the process. I have had pretty good success with Un-Do and not had any problems removing what little of the product might get on the photo itself with a fine cotton cloth. This would be the kind of cloth you use to clean glasses or camera lenses with. Again as always, be gentle with the cloth. You don’t want to be the cause of additional damage, first and foremost.
4. I have also had some luck with the microwave. Remove the page from the album and stick it in the micro for 5 seconds, wait 5 seconds, nuke another 5 seconds, then check to see if it has softened the adhesive at all. If you’re seeing any signs of this working you can repeat the 5 second nuke followed by waiting 5 seconds, etc. If you’re not having any luck with the adhesive softening or making enough progress without worrying about damage, then go on to the next solution…
5. If you have a scanner, scan the photos in at a minimum of 300dpi. I can’t tell you how much business I get where this is the only technique available. Many instances of framed photos stuck to the glass, but that’s a subject for another day. For photos smaller than 5×7 definitely scan at 600dpi. If you do not have a scanner, Kinko’s or similar office supply or copy places can do it for you. Or you can have a photo restoration artist like myself do it for , after which your photos can be saved “as is” on archival CDs, to be brought back to life via restoration either now or later. The great news is that once they have been scanned and saved to an archival disc (this is what digital archiving is if anyone was wondering), the sands of time will at least stop there.
I hope this helps. Happy photo saving!

I almost forgot…Let me know what kind of success you all have with these tips and/or any other tips you might be able to add!

Merrilee

First things first…

Well, here we go.  The first ever blog in my new wonderful weblog site!  I feel like celebrating this new step!!  Hopefully, you’ll all be happy to come along with me at least from time to time.  Today I want to start off with baby steps.  An easy way to begin to preserve your family photos.  So let’s go…

If you never do another thing with your photos, and we pretty much all have these, please remove your photos from those “magnetic” photo albums from the 80s.  They were touted as being convenient, which they were,  and a great way to protect your photos, which they were NOT.  There were really no archival quality standards available to the public in those days and I doubt if any of the manufacturers of photo albums or any other photo related products even considered long-term effects on the photos themselves.  It turns out that the sticky stuff on the back of the pages where you stuck your photos was made of a substance that, particularly when covered over by the clear mylar “protective” sheets, locked in gases that severly deteriorated the dyes, ink, emulsions, etc. that created the image on the photos surface.  Very bad stuff.  It interacted especially badly with the photos of the time, images often losing virtually all color except one – red.  (See below)  So if you still have any of those albums stashed away anywhere, get them out and c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y remove the photos ASAP.  Remember, every day your precious photos remain in those nasty things, is another day of unnecessary deterioration.  Taking them out will at least stop that. 

The second problem is that after all this time, there will likely be photos that are well and truly stuck to the back page.  If you find yourself in this situation STOP.  Take out what you can and put them in archival quality photo boxes (like shoe boxes but for photos) which are now available very inexpensively through various resources.  I have some ideas and techniques that have worked for me sometimes but not always to remove those stuck-on photos, but this would be a good time and place for you all to chime in with techniques you’ve successfully used.  I’d also be interested in knowing some of the places you may have found some inexpensive “archival” storage materials for your photos.  So be careful, but DO remove your photos and let us know how it’s going.

A hui ho! (‘Til Next Time)

Merrilee

Aloha world!

Welcome to my brand new blog!  I’m excited about the prospect of having a place to share my particular knowledge with you all, let you know what’s new in photo restoration, preservation and organization.  I’m also excited to hear what you know, and what kind of things you’re doing, whether it’s preserving your own history or forging new and positive ways through life.  Woo hoo…Let’s talk!