Making a photo album with your loose photos

[Akira Takiguchi]

This thread was originally in E-stand. Thought it might be interesting to others, so I brought it here with a bit of editing.

What do you do when you get bunch of loose photos, or when you get a badly damaged album?

One way is to get an empty original wartime album and put your photos on it.

It's not a bad idea, it looks neat!

But I strongly recommend to fix the photos on A4 black (or white) thick paper using photo corners (photos on one side), and put them in plastic sleeves (two papers in a sleeve). Then put them in a ring binder.

Merits:<ol>
<li>You can easily take out one piece of paper to scan any photos. With classic albums it is difficult and likely to damage the album.
<li>Photos are better protected from air (and humidity).
<li>Even after when it becomes no longer yours in the future, the album is clearly a modern production and not a faked one.
<li>You don't have to worry about too few or too many black leaves in classic albums.
</ol>
Dave (dm5000) wrote:

I agree with Akira... One other thought that he didnt mention though.... Many photos of this vintage have writing on the back. I use high quality baseball card holders to store pictures. If you mount them in a traditional album, the writing is out of sight.. out of mind....

This is an important and good alternative, I think.

Much faster. Your own comment can be written on a similar size of white paper and put it in a pocket.

Tim Calvert asked:

Have you ever had any problems with photos sticking to the plastic due to humidity??

I'm a bit worried about it. My photo room is kept at 45-50% humidity using a 24-hour air conditioning, which should keep away the problem. But where humidity can go high, plastic bags may do some harm. I have no definite answer here.

[François SAEZ]

Akira,
Can you show an example, please.

[dm5000]

Here is mine....

Thanks for starting the thread Akira. E-stand wasnt a good spot for it.

Here is how I store my loose photos. I use Print File brand photo holders found here:

http://www.printfile.com

This photo was from an early album and the sleeve is a different brand, but you get the idea. Print File item #120-9HB (Holds eighteen 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" wallet prints or collectable cards.
Fits: hanging file, standard binder) is perfect for about 80% of my loose photos. As you can see from the website, they have a range of sizes if you collect postcards or other items.

I only put one photo per slot so that I can read comments on the reverse, but $10USD gets you 25 sleeves x 9 pictures per sleeve or 225 pictures. Not a bad deal.

Also, some interesting information about temps, humidity, etc. here:
http://www.printfile.com/whyarchive.cfm

Dave

[dm5000]

And the reverse....

Being able to read the comments on the reverse is critical to me and (for me) represents much of the value of photos.

Dave

[Stijn David]

Photo albums

Hello,


Thanks for the very usefull tips in this thread => I think I will mount the loose pictures on A4 paper ( black or white ) as I have done alreay before => that way I do not harm a original untouched period Photo album + it will never be original or period mounted.

The main point is to preserve the history behind a person, Unit, etc ... etc ... and I like the constructiveness of such threads .


Cordial Greetings,