Fall Memories and the Comfort of Organized Photos

We have made it to that sweet spot in the seasons. Early fall. My favorite for as long as I can remember and made official on the day we brought out son home in late September 2010.

That day was The Most Perfect Fall Day. There was a cool breeze as we carried him out of the hospital, swimming in his giant carseat. Not a touch of humidity in the air. Bright blue sky and leaves just starting to turn. Midwestern weather perfection.

I have a photo of that somewhere. How often do we say that?

I know exactly where to find the photos of his first days. Digitally, they are stored in the cloud on Dropbox and on an external harddrive that I can access from my desktop or laptop computers. There is a hard copy in our family photo album from 2010.

But there are many, many photos that are a little lost. Not lost for good, just harder to find because we don't have the same connection.

First steps, first haircut, the time we found the giant yellow leaf. First soccer game or baking cookies with Nana. As the years go by and events start to repeat, they pile and overlap in our memories until it's not as easy to find exactly what we're looking for in our photos. We can remember what, but not exactly when.

Digital photos that are organized not only by event or chronology, but by person and place is the best way to ensure that our photos are easily found. Most of the work I've done so far with Recollect has been scanning and preserving print photos. But organizing digital images is just as important. We must back them up and save them on reliable services and devices that will aid our memory keeping, not confuse it.

If you are interested in learning how to best save and organize your digital photos, get in touch with me and I will help you get started.

Amy

Email: amy@recollectphotomanager.com

Facebook: @recollectphotos

"I didn't think it could be done"

With digital photography, our photos are relatively safe compared to the printed photos that originated in the days of film. Our older printed photos are in a constant danger of fading, damage, or deterioration. Fortunately, digital photo restoration can breathe new life into these fading images,

I've spent some time this summer with some precious, but damaged, photos.

Digital photo restoration is an intricate and tedious process. I use Photoshop, Lightroom and even a little AI to complete these repairs. While AI has been making the news lately with what it can do, it is not a complete solution. Most photo repairs need several different types of tools to complete the job. Coverage of imperfections such as dust and scratches, color matching, texture matching and recreation of details that have been worn or torn away are all part of the process.

Assessing the Damage

Before starting the restoration, an assessment of the photograph's condition is needed. With this project, I was able to do so from photos taken of the photos. I could see that they were physically worn around the edges, had scratches, fold lines and was missing some of the bottom right. It also appeared that the photo had been rolled up at one point.

Humidifying

Some old photos become very brittle over time. Flattening them to scan them could cause further damage. In order to flatten safely, I had to reintroduce some humidity. It sounds a little ridiculous that a photo would need more humidity in the summer in the midwest, but slowing adding concentrated humidity allows the photo to relax and flatten.

Check out the time-lapse of this baby photo uncurling from the humidity created by a wet towel in a sealed container. This took about an hour.

Scanning the image

For photos that need a lot of digital work, I use a flatbed scanner. The photo is scanned at a high resolution in order to give me the most digital information to work with.

Restoring Details and Texture

One of the best things about digital restoration is the ability to restore lost details and textures in the photograph. I've been using Photoshop for a very long time, Replacing, removing and swapping out elements of a photo is nothing new to me. I actually enjoy the tedious detail work involved in this sort of editing work. It's definitely not for everyone. For this photo, I had to recreate portions of the shoes. I had to think back to my art classes in drawing and perspective to imagine how the shoes would have looked in the original.

Color Correction and Enhancement

We all know how to do some changes and adjustment to an image. Editing apps have made that so easy. Color correction can be a little more difficult for restoration jobs. It's not just about knowing the editing program, it's also knowing about photography and how the photo looked in the era that it was made. Or being able to recognize true skin tones, whites and blacks.

Archiving and Preservation:

Once the digital restoration is complete, it's crucial to preserve the restored photograph for future generations. Archiving the digital file in a high-quality format ensures its longevity. Additionally, creating prints on archival paper or transferring the restored image to other mediums like canvas or digital frames can offer physical copies that can be enjoyed and shared.

Who doesn't love a good before and after?

This is an extreme example of what I can do to help keep our family photos safe for the next generation. Most prints have some scratches and creases, maybe a few stains. Some photos have faded or have started to turn red or brown.

Please reach out to me when you are ready to tackle your photo organization or restoration project. I am happy to chat about all of the possibilities available for photos old and new.

Amy

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And Summer is Here!

Summer.

What does it look like for you? Is it your busy time of year filled with ballgames, visitors and travel? Or is it truly the lazy days, spent by a pool, enjoying time at home and sleeping in whenever you get the chance? No matter your approach to summer, I'm betting that there are more photos taken this time of year than others.

Many of my favorite photos are from summer trips. Every few years, my parents would take us on epic 2 week long road trips. We would bring our cameras and snap photos of the mountains, historic buildings and monuments, Disney and the beach. Plus the shenanigans at the hotel pool and the insanity of the car rides. Sometimes we would use THREE WHOLE ROLLS OF FILM. That's like 75 photos over the course of a couple thousand miles and 10+ days.

The trips I take with my little family are a little shorter. But the number of photos we take is much, much higher. We took a 4 day road trip with kids in 2016, our first "big" car trip. I count 145 photos from that long weekend.

Shedd Aquarium = 47 photos in a little under 3 hours

A quick stop to see Sue the dinosaur and another 21 photos

If you grew up using film, you may see these numbers and pause for a second and wonder "What in the world do we do with all of these photos?" The answer is the same for digital as it was for film. We put them in albums.

Digital albums that sort and divide our photos by event and category are a quick and easy way to look through just the photos we want to see.

Printed photo books are my favorite for vacation photos for several reasons.

1 - You can pull them off the shelf, sit down with the kids and flip through the pages and reconnect with the event without the distraction of a phone.

2 - Captions and titles can be added to the photos, labeling the places you visit so the details are not forgotten.

3 - My favorite reason to make photo books is that you are forced to make choices. Only the best images make it to my photo books. It's a fulfilling way to force organization and eliminate the duplicates and extras that aren't needed. You end up with everything you need to tell the story of the trip and nothing you don't.

Lakeshore photos were condensed onto 1 page

As I said in my last blog post about school photos there is something very special about looking at printed photos vs digital images. Keeping them backed up in a digital format is always the way to go. But pulling out the best photos and saving them in a book makes them accessible and important in a way that digital cannot.

I love to make photo books and will be running a summer special on photo books starting in August.

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