Storing Photographs......

As a professional photo editor I often get asked to repair old or damaged photographs. Many, many times I am able to revive old, cracked, torn or otherwise damaged photos. The purpose of this post it to help educate those of you who want to avoid watching your precious memories fade away. Here are a few tips on storing an preserving your prints.

First let me say, with the advent of the personal scanner there is no reason why you should not have copies of those one-of-a-kind family photos on a CD-Rom tucked away in a safe place. Digitizing your precious prints will stop the aging process dead in its tracks!! If you have snapshots or negatives that are still in good shape and mean a lot to you scan them now! Years down the road you will still be able make great looking prints without the expense or time involved in trying to restore those photographs that you did not take care of properly.

Best Tips for Storing your Photographs:

DO NOT USE "magnetic" albums. The materials used in these types of albums will damage photographs over time.

DO NOT use glue or tape on photos.

DO avoid having loose photos around paperclips or other rough or metal objects that might scratch them.

DO use acid-free, archival quality storage products and mats. Wood and wood products, like cardboard and paper, harm photographs and should only be used if labeled "acid-free."

DO use a mat around your photos when framing behind glass. This keeps a tiny space between the photo and the glass which can help keep the photo from sticking to the glass after many years.

Do store photos in a climate controlled area. Not too hot or cold. Not to dry or too humid.

Using the crop tool in Adobe Photoshop CS©

• To cancel a crop, hit the escape key. To apply the crop, hit the enter key, double click inside of the crop bounding box, or choose another tool from the tool bar.
• To use the Crop tool to add canvas to your image, drag out a crop and release the mouse. Then, drag the crop handles outside of the image area and apply the crop. The area outside of the image will be added to the canvas. Note: to add transparency around the image (instead of filling the added space with the background color) convert the background into a layer (by double clicking on Background in the Layers palette).
  To eliminate any information that is outside or beyond the visible image area (and possibly decrease file size), choose Select All > Image > Crop.
• To use the dimensions of one image to crop another, select the document with the desired crop (width, height, and resolution) and click the "front image" button in the Options bar. This will enter the height, width and resolution for the document in the Options bar. Then, switch to the document that needs to be cropped and use the crop tool. The aspect ration will be constrained while dragging the crop and, when applied, the image will be resized to the desired width, height and resolution. The forward slash key toggles on and off the shields while using the crop tool. To temporarily override the "snap to" options, hold the control key while dragging.
• To make a crop that is a specific size and resolution in option bar enter the desired width and height and resolution/dpi. Now drag the crop tool in your image. This will make a crop that is the that is the exact size you specified while still allowing you to choose the area to be cropped. Click on clear to erase the specified dimensions and resume using the crop tool as usual.