What do you do with heritage photo albums? You want to preserve the efficacy of the album as it was created, in its original form, with the notes made by its creator. Yet, you want to use the pictures for your own family album and to share with other family members.
Some of us are lucky enough to have family albums from our grandparents or even great grandparents. They are on old pages with fading handwriting. But that handwriting is cherished – it may be all that is really personal that is left of them. And it tells a little bit about those printed photos.
The solution may be obvious to some and not to others. Scanning the pictures is the solution but it may not be as easy as you think. First, you want to keep the album in tact. That means you may not be able to scan the pictures on a flat bed scanner without damaging the album. The solution – a portable scanner. Next problem? The pictures from days gone by are not standard size and cannot always be printed standard size, that is as 4×6 photos.
Here is a page from an album I’m working on for a client. It dates back to 1906. It’s a beautiful old album and he wants to keep it intact. I’ve scanned each picture but I can’t have them printed in a 4×6 format because all the pictures are odd sizes. My solution is to put the pictures on a blank 12×12 page in my scrapbooking software, trim away the excess page that the scanner picked up, line them up so that I can easily cut them off the page, and cut them to size from the page.
Page from original 1906 album
Here is what one of the pages looks like before cutting:
Old photos ready to print & cut
Do you have any treasured old family albums? How will you preserve the memories they hold?
Susan Berland is a Personal Photo Organizer. She organizes print and digital photos and memorabilia, and creates keepsake albums, displays and gifts. Her passion is helping people get organized and create a legacy for their families.
