My grandfather recently passed away and in the box of items he left for me was a large album with photos from the war. All are in black & white and some are a little gruesome. I would like to somehow preserve this important historical albumn. Can anyone give me some advice?
Welcome KP, Best thing if it's dry and intact is leave 'em in the Album, as long as you insert a sheet of acid free tissue over each page of photos and there's no evidence that any glue, or the paper that they're mounted onto is attacking 'em then silver Halide and the papers of the day are much more stable than the average digital prints, should last a very long time like that. Light's the enemy, but if you want to scan them then I'd go ahead, as a quick burst in a scanner shouldn't do any real harm to a well fixed photograph. I've certainly never damaged one doing it, and it's worth it for the extra digitally usable image you end up with. it's long term light that really fades. If you've got the negatives then scanning them with a dedicated film scanner is the best way to digitally preserve images. Never send such precious things off for scanning though, if you don't know anyone who might have a film scanner then try a reputable local photography shop. I hope you'll share them with us if you do digitise them . Cheers, Adam.
Welcome. Another option with those photos is to find a professional photographer/developer -- that is, not WalMart -- and have reversals made (IOW, a pro can make new negatives for you, if you don't have the originals). They won't be as good as the original negatives -- it's kinda like making a copy of an original document: it's never exactly as good; but if you can afford to do it, that would be really worthwhile. As Adam said, acid-free paper is a must, for both sides of the pics.
