Best storage/archiving of Polaroids

[Goodwin17]

My father took numerous Polaroids of me as a baby in the very early 1980's. I'm trying to keep them preserved in the best way possible. What are your recommendations? Also I want to scan them, and I was wondering what is the best method to go about scanning them so I can print them out later if something were to happen to the originals. Thanks for any help.

[Jerryb]

hi i am no expert but my thoughts.
1. preserving the photographs... use acid free sleeves and store is cool low himidy place...

scanning well first... think about the cd you.. not all cd are equal, use only the best for long term archival.... don't use those cheap cd's.. i use tdk's and imation .. this site give you an idea which are good and bad..
http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware...ty.shtml#Index
and if yo want theee best... they cost alittle more but your "gold" cd's .. and burn yours at 4x speed a very reliable burning speed...

2. i scan all of my personal pictures at 300 ppi and if there really poor i'll go400 or 600 to get the most detail out of them...
3. i save my pictures in a non lossy format such as png or tif or bmp .... jpg format there too many issues that degrades the quality...
4. i never retouch my orgininals... primarily because my expertise not that good and over time my ability does get better... so it nice to have the orginal to work on...
5. something to think about... is put caption underneathe the picture (my preference) , not on the picture. when you look at picture 10 years later you wonder about what when where the picture took place.. it nice to have the caption..!

6. this link is sort of representative of the various scanning tips websites..
http://www.yesteryearmemories.com/scanning_tips.asp

final note: I have found on several situations of turning off some of the automatic image manipulation a scanner can do.... will give a better quality... if done manually...
well those are my thoughts.... smiling

Originally Posted by Goodwin17

My father took numerous Polaroids of me as a baby in the very early 1980's. I'm trying to keep them preserved in the best way possible. What are your recommendations? Also I want to scan them, and I was wondering what is the best method to go about scanning them so I can print them out later if something were to happen to the originals. Thanks for any help.

[TommyO]

JerryB gave you good advise. #4 is a good one; I wish I had not touched a few images years ago.. or at least kept the original. Live and learn.

Also, with Polaroids they tend to decay much more quickly due to the way they are taken & developed. All that excess chemical and uneven application just makes them hard to keep. So, do scan them quickly. And keep the Polaroids away from all other photographs, slides or negatives.