MarkW Posted December 26, 2015 Posted December 26, 2015 Evening all - hope your festive seasons have all been good!I have spent a few hours this evening going through a couple of hundred old family photos with my mother. The oldest, by our estimation, is from about 1908, and the most modern ones are from the mid-1960s. Some of these newer ones are on glossy paper and not in bad condition, but the older ones are all on fibre-based paper and in fairly bad shape. My mother only got her hands on them in the early 1990s when her mother died, and it doesn't look as though they had been very well cared for.As part of a little family history project we'd like to digitise them for circulation around the wider family in the hope they can fill in some of the blanks. I know there are some professional photographers on here, so I was looking for some advice on the following:1. Would you attempt to clean surface dirt off the older photos or leave them alone?2. If cleaning is OK, what's the safest way to do it?3. Any scanner recommendations? In addition to the two hundred or so prints (mainly postcard size, but a few up to A4) we also have hundreds of 35 mm slides belonging to my father that we'd like to scan as well.Thanks guys! Quote
Tango Posted December 27, 2015 Posted December 27, 2015 Can't help with the photo restoration question......but it must be that time of year.....was going through some old photos with my mum yesterday.......she's got some that date back to the turn of the last century......and they're in not bad condition either...... My Grandad ( on the left) born in 1901 Quote
eastanglianbiker Posted December 27, 2015 Posted December 27, 2015 rantmachine could very well hold the answers you need to this question Quote
Guest Posted December 27, 2015 Posted December 27, 2015 Just bear in mind scanning stuff in yourself takes hours and hours. Maybe see if any local businesses do it and get a price. Quote
MarkW Posted December 27, 2015 Author Posted December 27, 2015 rantmachine could very well hold the answers you need to this questionAye, but where is he when I need him? Out jitterbugging I shouldn't wonder, or whatever these young 'uns get up to nowadays... Quote
Hoggs Posted December 27, 2015 Posted December 27, 2015 Maybe he got drunk and bought a Chinese bike on ebay and is now hiding in a cupboard Quote
eastanglianbiker Posted December 27, 2015 Posted December 27, 2015 Maybe he got drunk and bought a Chinese bike on ebay and is now hiding in a cupboard it wouldnt be the first time he has done it Quote
MarkW Posted December 27, 2015 Author Posted December 27, 2015 Can't help with the photo restoration question......but it must be that time of year.....was going through some old photos with my mum yesterday.......she's got some that date back to the turn of the last century......and they're in not bad condition either...... Nice photo! It's amazing to look back on family photos taken so long ago, isn't it? They hadn't even thought about building the Titanic when that one was taken! We were at a family funeral a few weeks ago, and I think we realised that there are so few of us left that someone needs to collate, research and archive all these old photos if they are not to disappear in the mists of time. My mother is retired now, so the genealogy bit will give her something to do, and I'm happy to scan and annotate the images and take her for the odd research trip: her father was in the Cheshires between the wars and served extensively in India, so I'm sure a trip to their regimental museum in Chester would be fascinating. Quote
fullscreenaging Posted December 27, 2015 Posted December 27, 2015 It amazes me that we know more about our mates then we do of our own family and heritage.It seems that it's always been this way. Especially when you watch these sort of programs on TV.At my Uncles funeral recently when the eulogy was read about his life I realised that I didn't really know him like I thought I did. Same as my Granddad! Quote
JRH Posted December 28, 2015 Posted December 28, 2015 It amazes me that we know more about our mates then we do of our own family and heritage.It seems that it's always been this way. Especially when you watch these sort of programs on TV.At my Uncles funeral recently when the eulogy was read about his life I realised that I didn't really know him like I thought I did. Same as my Granddad! Too true. When I was younger, stop tittering at the back. My aunts used to talk about the family but it was so boring then. Now I am somewhat older and researching the family tree I wished I had paid more attention. Same with old photos I have inherited, don't know who some of them are and no one left to ask. Quote
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