? using pre-digital photos on digital pages

[Blossom]

I am so out of it with regards of paper scrapping as I have never done that.

I have so many pre-digital photos laying around in boxes which I are so sorry for stuck there in the box.

I am printing my LO pages at printing places. Can I put my older photos on top with stickers or must the pages be acid free. I would believe that the printing places are not using acid free paper. That would be a great thing to use my photos. I am not thinking of buying paper stuff so that is not an option for me.

What else do you do with your photos laying around (I scan too, but it would be nice to be able to use my paper prints, too).

[DonnaNJ]

I scanned all my old photos (well I'm still in the process) and then (GASP!) threw out the prints.

[suzanne]

Originally Posted by DonnaNJ

I scanned all my old photos (well I'm still in the process) and then (GASP!) threw out the prints.

not sure i could do that.

[muddygirl]

I know i couldn't do that!

Blossom, I would just check if the printer you are using is printing with archival quality papers and inks. If your pages are a photograpic print I cant see why you couldn't mount your prints onto your digitally created layouts. It may be a matter of shopping around untill you find a printer who can do what you need. I'm not sure that helps. Maybe some of the girls who do hybrid will have a better answer for you.

[whatnext]

i think scanning is the only answer. i paper scrapped long before i digi scrapped, and i can't tell you the number of ORIGINAL PHOTOS i ruined forever by cutting them into heart-shapes and circles! i'm sure you can use the original on a hybrid page, but if you haven't scanned that photo first, you've permanently stuck that photo into an environment where it will live forever.

[SharLamb]

We had hundreds (thousands?) of our old photos professionally digitized (scanned). It was scary sending them off, but there was no way either my DH or I was going to spend the rest of our lives doing that. We have, however, kept the originals in a safe environment. We had disks made for each of our children as well.

[digigrandma]

Blossom, I agree with Phylis! Keep a copy of the original at least of your favorites.

My new plan is not to keep the original prints in display albums, but, in storage boxes that are archival safe where they are sorted into categories.

I scan older photos that I want to use in a layout to be printed in an album and then keep the originals in the storage box.

Donna, I am trying to part with some of the older prints.....like duplicates, blurry shots, people we can't identify, etc.

[digigrandma]

Shar, I found through an Internet search that there are people doing the slide scanning locally (Minneapolis) so that I can deliver the slides to them in person. My sister-in-law and a friend of mine have already done this and they are really pleased with the results.

Maybe you can find a reputable place near enough to you to drop off the slides so that you don't have to mail them off.

[DonnaNJ]

Originally Posted by digigrandma

Blossom, I agree with Phylis! Keep a copy of the original at least of your favorites.

My new plan is not to keep the original prints in display albums, but, in storage boxes that are archival safe where they are sorted into categories.

I scan older photos that I want to use in a layout to be printed in an album and then keep the originals in the storage box.

Donna, I am trying to part with some of the older prints.....like duplicates, blurry shots, people we can't identify, etc.

Throwing them out is definitely not for everyone :-) most people have a hard time throwing out photos even if they are willing to throw out other things. I should explain that to some degree the decision was made for me by the condition of the photos.. I inherited thousands of photos from both my inlaws and parents none of which were in great shape so when I started the idea was to scan them and then print them out a year at a time as I was ready to scrap them.. since discovering digital scrapbooking I've just decided to skip the printing part :-) I do however print the photobooks so I do have a paper copy.

Just curious, those of you who keep the prints.. do you also keep the negatives?

[DonnaNJ]

Also should add here.. for those with paper photos.. even if you intend to keep the paper copies. I'm a big proponent of scanning everything and, at the very least, uploading it to Shutterfly or what ever service you use. A friend of mine had her house burn down a few months ago and she lost almost all her photos... and it's so sad because that was the first thing she said once she knew everyone was OK. Photos are one of those things that insurance can't replace and as long as it's someplace like Shutterfly you can always order CDs to get them back or order prints.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by DonnaNJ

Also should add here.. for those with paper photos.. even if you intend to keep the paper copies. I'm a big proponent of scanning everything and, at the very least, uploading it to Shutterfly or what ever service you use. A friend of mine had her house burn down a few months ago and she lost almost all her photos... and it's so sad because that was the first thing she said once she knew everyone was OK. Photos are one of those things that insurance can't replace and as long as it's someplace like Shutterfly you can always order CDs to get them back or order prints.

I am so in on you with this. one of my kiddos lost our EHD from a table to the floor 3 years ago, and almost all photos from 2004 is gone + some other favourite. I have now 5 EHD with the photos on. Two of them I keep in my office at work as I believe home and office will not burn at the same time.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by DonnaNJ

Just curious, those of you who keep the prints.. do you also keep the negatives?

I have both prints and negatives. I use mostly negatives when I scan photos I have taken.

I think I have to look into this safe storage boxes for those photos that is not already in albums from my pre-digital and pre-scrapping times.

I also would like to store my negatives safe... but on the other hand I scan all of them in the present days - think I have gotten in about 300 photos on my computer the past 1,5 days. And there is still many strips to go.

[rj77]

Originally Posted by whatnext

i think scanning is the only answer. i paper scrapped long before i digi scrapped, and i can't tell you the number of ORIGINAL PHOTOS i ruined forever by cutting them into heart-shapes and circles! i'm sure you can use the original on a hybrid page, but if you haven't scanned that photo fitst, you've permanently stuck that photo into an environment where it will live forever.

This goes for me, too. It's sad, but true!

[arimacias]

Originally Posted by rj77

This goes for me, too. It's sad, but true!

ahhhhh...but that is the beauty of digital
i have done a few pages where the pics were cut into odd shapes, so i scanned them at hi-dpi then enlarged them a little and popped them into digi pages worked like a charm!

[whatnext]

noooooooooo negatives! i'm finding that all this backing up and keeping has left me with more stuff than i had BEFORE i started scanning and digitizing things. i had to draw the line at negatives. (i'm also transferring a lot my my tape stuff to DVD and had to make the decidion to let go of most of the originals, or i would have ended up increasing my stash instead of decreasing it.)

[arimacias]

all my film negatives are in boxed in a cool dark place (AKA my closet). they will probably end up trashed, but not yet.

[Debi]

I'm slowly scanning my printed photos. I like digi scrapping, so I am fairly sure I won't be using those printed photos unless I scan them first. It it time consuming, but I can get a lot of scanning done while watching tv or a movie. It's mindless work, but time consuming - and worth it. And believe me, I have many thousands of photos covering way too many years. I stored them chronologically by year, though, so they are organized fairly well before I scan them, making them easy to sort into file folders.

[suzanne]

Originally Posted by arimacias

ahhhhh...but that is the beauty of digital
i have done a few pages where the pics were cut into odd shapes, so i scanned them at hi-dpi then enlarged them a little and popped them into digi pages worked like a charm!

fabulous idea...i have so many photos cut in different shapes and was trying to figure out how i was going to fix that major screw up.

[suzanne]

Originally Posted by DonnaNJ

Throwing them out is definitely not for everyone :-) most people have a hard time throwing out photos even if they are willing to throw out other things. I should explain that to some degree the decision was made for me by the condition of the photos.. I inherited thousands of photos from both my inlaws and parents none of which were in great shape so when I started the idea was to scan them and then print them out a year at a time as I was ready to scrap them.. since discovering digital scrapbooking I've just decided to skip the printing part :-) I do however print the photobooks so I do have a paper copy.

Just curious, those of you who keep the prints.. do you also keep the negatives?

i am thinking that if i have the negatives for photos i might could through the print away...maybe

[suzanne]

i really need to get busy scanning all these photos we have. i can't imagine ever going back to paper scrapping.

[bjrobie]

another idea for back-up... my digi photos are backed up onto an EHD that is at my mom's house in the event of a fire. I keep my mom's photos backed up on an EHD at my house. We try to do this around Easter and Christmas each year. I have had friends lose everything in house fires.

[glassbird]

Something else to consider...printed pictures (pre-digital or digital) may or MAY NOT have been printed on paper (and chemicals) that were designed to be around long term! Before digital really got going, I worked at two different photo labs, a few years apart. Of course, I printed LOTS of my own pictures. And I have noticed a large difference in the color stability between pics printed at one lab, and pics printed at the other. All have been stored together, so environment is not a factor. Oddly, even the negatives show differences...the negs developed at the lab with poorer color stability are "crispier" than the negatives developed at the lab that produced better color stability.

Needless to say, I am scanning the stuff from the lower quality lab as fast as I can! And attaching those fading prints to my printed digital pages would be a complete waste of time. Further, my printing service (Scrapbooks to Share) uses archival paper and inks...putting non-archival (and possibly dangerous) printed pics onto archival paper could put the paper at risk...damaging any other pics and journaling on the page!

...and regarding back-ups...all I can say is "Carbonite or Mozy"!

[DonnaNJ]

Glassbird Thanks for the great info... didn't think about the quality of the processing but that's so true.. I had lots of old photos that turned orange or green too.. guess that's part of the instability issue. One more reason to scan.

[cheska99]

I organized all my printed photos (took weeks) in Stacy Julian's Library of Memories class. Now I know what I have and where they are and I scan them when I want to scrap them, but I'm not going to go back and scan everything. I just scan on a need to use basis.

[digigal]

That's what I am doing, out of the albums and into the storage boxes!

Originally Posted by digigrandma

Blossom, I agree with Phylis! Keep a copy of the original at least of your favorites.

My new plan is not to keep the original prints in display albums, but, in storage boxes that are archival safe where they are sorted into categories.

I scan older photos that I want to use in a layout to be printed in an album and then keep the originals in the storage box.

Donna, I am trying to part with some of the older prints.....like duplicates, blurry shots, people we can't identify, etc.

[AmyJ]

Who says you can't just put the printed pics in a photo album???? Safe and visible.

Just because we scrapbook doesn't mean there's not a place for photo albums.

Now, if you're interested in scrapbooking the photos, scan them in. This is something I'm currently working on. I'm starting with pics from 1994-2003 (when I went digi). These are all pretty much 4" by something pics. (I had an APS camera from 1997-2003) I can run them through the document feeder on my all-in-one and get them scanned in bunches. Now, the pics pre-1994 are going to be another story as they are all different sizes and many are much more brittle.

[geekgirl415]

AmyJ, that's what I'm doing- a little bit of Stacy Julian (no where near as organized), and prints in photo sleeves in 12x12 albums by decade. We never would pull them out when they were in boxes.
I had probably 50 rolls of APS, 30 sets of negatives and some old film. I brought them into Costco to get them on CD. I then spent a full weekend (scrapbooking weekend away) loading those up onto my EHD by year. The next scrapbook weekend was spent putting all those old prints into the albums by decade. Still have more to do. Once that's done- I'm only going to digi scrap the ones that strike my fancy. I'll consider myself caught up!

And isn't it amazing how scrapping (those of us who started on paper scrapping) has come so far since the days we were cutting photos in shapes and decorating with the "sticker sneeze"??