Cleaning Out the Attic: Solving the Photo Storage Problem

I was rummaging through my attic yesterday looking for some children’s books to give my niece when I made the most amazing discovery: lost behind boxes and boxes Christmas decorations were even more boxes filled with old photos!

You know the photo boxes I mean; the ones with fake leather on the outside and a label in the front to assist in “organization.” But really, these boxes are ridiculous because who has an entire box of photos that fall under a single category? Any time I’ve tried to organize my prints in any particular way I find myself at a loss. There are just too many to keep track of, and even if do I manage to organize them by year or event, they just end up going back in those ineffectively-labeled boxes and I don’t see them until the next time I go searching through the attic.

Then of course, there is the issue of preservation. A lot of these photos were taken by my grandparents between 1930-1970. The rest are from my childhood. They are starting to wear (and the fact that they’re only starting is impressive now that I think of it); some photos are discolored, some have suffered water damage, and some of the photo finishes are starting to separate from the paper.

What kills me is that I never look at the hundreds of photos I have stored away despite my refusal to throw them out. Their sentimental value is incredible, and I’d like to find a way to both preserve and memorialize these shots to give them the respect they deserve. The attic is no place for memories.

Okay, okay, ready for my solution? I know you’ve been at the edge of your seat since reading the first paragraph, so here it is: SCANNING! Why not take all these prints and digitize them? Here are all the benefits of scanning your prints (and negatives and slides, while you’re at it):

• Backup & Storage: Photo files take up A LOT LESS SPACE than prints. You can keep your photos on discs or buy an external hard drive for around $100 to hold all your photos in one small electronic box. Actually I recommend doing both – backing up your photos by keeping them in more than one place will ensure that your photos will be safe, and won’t get lost if, say, your computer breaks down.
• Preservation: Digital photos aren’t susceptible to water damage or bleaching from the sun. There is no paper so they won’t disintegrate with time or becomes separated from their shiny finish. Also, once photos are scanned, there is actually software out there that can restore photos, removing damage (and red-eye) and enhancing your photos beyond even their original quality.
• Usability: Not to toot my own horn here, but if your photos are on your computer you can do a lot more with them like, say, make a photo book with them on Pixable.com! You can easily take your friends for “a trip down memory lane” by emailing them photos from high school or summer camp. Or make a virtual family tree using old black & whites from the 1930s. Really, the possibilities are endless once you get technology involved in your old photography.

Now, how exactly to go about scanning. Of course, you can try and scan these photos yourself, and if you have a nice enough scanner, that could really work. However, if you want to get the full treatment – photo restoration, red-eye removal, high quality scanning with dust removal etc. – I recommend sending your boxes of prints to a professional photo-scanning company. It will save you lots of time, and while it does cost a little money, the quality of your photos will be far higher than doing it yourself.

There appear to be two companies that provide this service for a reasonable price – DigMyPics and ScanCafe. They are clearly competitors – they actually trash talk each other on their websites- but I can’t find much of a difference between their pricing or their services. The companies also provide negative and slide scanning, as well as video-to-dvd conversion (very helpful for home movies!).

ScanCafe charges $0.35 per printed photo, with a $0.29 summer special. Their restoration services start at $6.95 – pricing depends on the severity of the photo damage.

DigMyPics charges $0.39 per printed photo and includes color and exposure correction.

Which company to choose depends on you; after reading countless reviews online I still can’t decide which service I prefer. All I know is, I can have 100 photos scanned for around $40, and for that price I’ll be seeing a lot more space in my attic really soon!