English Deutsch Français Italiano Español Português 繁體中文 Bahasa Indonesia Tiếng Việt ภาษาไทย
All categories

Archivists & conservators:

I have a many polaroid photos and other old photos from the 1960s

Each year - although kept in the dark fade more and more-
What can I do to slow or stop the fading?

Will scanning them into digital files harm them?

Thanks very much
T

2006-12-20 12:30:45 · 4 answers · asked by thomas 2 in Arts & Humanities Visual Arts Photography

4 answers

Scan the photos at 600 dpi and store the images on 2 cds ( in case you damage one).
Store the originals in a cool, dry, dark environment. The original images will continue to fade unfortunately. The scanned files will preserve your images very well.

2006-12-21 07:43:37 · answer #1 · answered by john_e_29212 3 · 1 0

Most of the photos of my kids growing up were Polaroids (and were fading), so I used scanning and photo editing software to create and improve digital images. It worked great!

I am sure that a few scans cannot do nearly as much damage as time. (and probably none)

I don't know how to save the originals, but my digital images are safe on CD and DVD for longer than I will need them.

I gave copies to the next generation, along with scans of photos from 2 generations earlier. They can even see them on TV with most newer DVD players.

Good Luck

2006-12-21 14:36:37 · answer #2 · answered by fredshelp 5 · 0 0

Yes, I find that they fade out or yellow out over time. There was a thing on the news the other day, that said they will no longer be making the cartridges for Polaroid film any longer, and that people have made a run on buying up what they can find, so that they can still use their Polaroid Camera's. I guess with video camera's and digital camera's that they feel it is not worth it to continue to make the film for those cameras anymore.

2016-05-23 02:43:35 · answer #3 · answered by Rhonda 4 · 0 0

Scanning them shouldn't do them TOO much harm, and will also enable you to see them in better detail......... perhaps improve it a bit too.

Scanning certainly improved a picture my Grandma had of her Grandma (which had to be pretty old, considering my Grandma is over 90yrs old now).......... and it showed up better than the original, with what appeared to be staining not showing.

As I don't have a scanner at home (if I need one, I have to use the one at my Grandma's house), I've attempted a few times to use my digital compact camera to do a rough quick scan of some old photographs I found tucked inside the family albums.
Here's how the worstly faded one turned out after I scanned it with the Digital Camera, resized it + ran a few touch up tools over it in PICTURE PUBLISHER 10:
http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jduck1979/detail?.dir=2a74re2&.dnm=53a9re2.jpg

2006-12-21 09:21:00 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

fedest.com, questions and answers