Old 4x6 photo's stuck together. Advice?

[Madmardigan]

Hi!

I'm looking for some advice. I have a box full of old snapshots (20yrs at the outside) that got wet at some point. Now many of the pictures are stuck together. I'd like to unstick them while at the same time inflicting the least amount of damage to them.

These are NOT priceless old pictures. No they're just an accounting of some very fun times of my life so it'd be shame to just chuck them.

I was assuming a soak in the tub with pehaps a bit of some kind of wetting agent followed by gentle unsticking, gentle squeegie-ing on the bathroom mirror and then a trip through an old print dryer I've just purchased off of eBay.

How's that sound? Any suggestion on wetting agents or, or, or,....?

Thanks greatly in advance!

p.s. I have been a photographer for many years and had a B&W darkroom for quite a long time so, I am familiar with that particular vocabulary in case you were wondering how basic you needed your answer(s) to be.

[Madmardigan]

....try the things mentioned there.

[BayCanuck]

I don't think you want to use wetting agent - I never used it on prints when I still had a darkroom. Of course, I could be wrong.

Try just dumping a few in a bucket of distilled water - five to ten minutes with an occasional gentle agitation should seperate them. If the water's full of crud or changes colour after that time, I'd dump the water, re-fill with clean water, and rinse them again. Or, just rinse again under a gentle tap at between 15 and 20C.

After that, I'd just air dry them, preferably by hanging. Try squeege-ing as well, but use your own judgement on how well that works.

[Cassidy]

We were flooded out at the beginning of year with much mud, silt and water, I found the most successful way of retrieval of documents etc was soaking in a bucket of warm/tepid water for maybe 10 mins and then hanging to dry. Any rubbing was a definite no no. Not a full recovery to new, but enough to be able to use be functional. In saying this however, our stuff was still wet.

[mejrdalman]

How did soaking and hanging of the pictures go? One of our old cats...cranky etc. peed on some professional photos of my children!! I need to save these photos before my husband comes home...or my kitty is history

Thanks,
mejrd

[Caitlin]

Are they relatively recent photos mejrd? If so the photographer should still hold the negatives and can do new prints.

[mejrdalman]

No, they are 10x12's of my son when he was 6 mos and 1 year old. He's now 10 1/2. I know that the photographer does not keep the negatives after 3 years. I had them in a box and the cat peed on the top of the box. At least it is only those two.

mejrd

[mejrdalman]

O.k., I did a little scouting around the forum while I was waiting and came across the "Please Help" thread. I used the steaming method on the photos and it worked out great!!! Thanks guys.

mejrd

[Cassidy]

Please either provide the link or explain

[mejrdalman]

Sorry, here's the link (I think) - http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/history-conservation-repair/10286-please-help.html

mejrd

[Cassidy]

many thanks