Curating Old Photos - Scan - Sort – Share by Jim Mathis
Aunt Martha
Most of us have a friend or family member who just loves old family photographs. This person is often the family historian. They go to family reunions or family gatherings and ask questions and collect photos and stories from the oldest people there. I like to call this person Aunt Martha. I am guessing that there is a good chance that you are that person in your family.
In my family it is my brother Joe. He is known as Uncle Joe to some family members, so whether you are Uncle Joe or Aunt Martha, this presentation pretty much applies to you.
Introduction - my background
I am not necessarily that person, I just love history in general, and old photographs in particular. That means that I am really interested in the history of photography. I have been in the photography business in one way or another my whole life. I have worked at a camera store, owned a custom black and white photo lab, bought, sold, and collected antique cameras, had a photography museum, owned a portrait studio, and for the last 16 years, been in the business of restoring old, damaged, or faded photographs.
Brief history of photography
Photography was invented in 1839 in either England or France. If you favor the French it was invented by Louis Daguerre. If you like the British better, photography was invented by Willam Henry Fox Talbot. Or it may have been somebody else. Several people had the idea of using light to capture an image and were working on several different processes. We do know for sure that nobody has any photographs made before 1839. Any photographs before about 1845 are very rare and mostly in museums.
For the first 50 years of photography, photographs were almost all made by professionals or skilled hobbyists who took the time to learn to mix chemicals, coat the plates, and process the images quickly before the emulsion dried. Even after factory made plates became available, photography was still a challenging process. That is why virtually all photographs made in the 19th century are high quality, usually made in a studio by professionals, and often fairly large except in the case of carte de visites which were wallet size and used as calling cards and some tin-types.
Many photographs from this era were hand colored using either oil or pastel paint. We can still hand colorize old black and white photographs using the same technique or a computerized version of the same thing.
An amazing thing happened in 1888. George Eastman had invented flexible film, that could be rolled up, but was finding little acceptance among photographers because they had to shoot the whole roll before the film could processed, plus, it couldn’t be held flat enough to be used for high quality work. Eastman’s solution was a whole new camera to be sold to a totally different market. He called the new camera “The Kodak,” a word he just made up because it sounded cool. The slogan was, “You push the button, we do the rest.” This was also the start of the photofinishing industry. Before long, all kinds of people were “Kodaking.”
Kodak pictures were typically smaller and printed on light weight paper. That means that generally speaking, photographs made after 1890 were small, easily damaged, usually poorly composed and probably out of focus. Of course, there were still plenty of professional photographers doing great work as there still are. But the vast majority of photographs made in the 20th century were amateur snapshots made on roll film.
Kodachrome color slide film came out in 1936 which was capable of making great pictures. Slides made anywhere from 1936 through 2000 or so, are often excellent, especially those made on Kodachrome.
Kodacolor color negative film for making color prints came out at the end of World War II and became very common after about 1955. Color negative film was never stable and color prints made from the early 1950’s through the end of the century are almost always faded and discolored. BUT, they can be restored. That is a big part of my business now.
In short, 19th century photos were generally made by professionals and are probably high quality, the first half of the 20th century is dominated by black and white snapshots, usually small sizes. The second half of the 20th century is dominated by unstable color film, and these are all fading fast.
The question is, What is pink and green and brown all over? The answer Kodacolor prints.
If the 19th century was the plate era of photography, the 20th century was the film era, then the 21st century is the digital era.
This is some of the information that Aunt Martha or Uncle Joe need to know to quickly put photographs in a basic time frame.
That brings us to the digital era. Digital photography has its own set of challenges. It is now easier and a whole lot cheaper to push the button and let the electronics do the rest. That very ease and cheapness has cheapened photography to the point that the images that should be priceless are now disposable.
It is true that a digital file can live forever, it is also very true that, in practice, any given picture will be lost in bit heaven unless we do something intentional to identify and save it.
Some of the advantages of digital are that we can immediately see what we have and can do another exposure if there is an issue like somebody’s eyes are closed. They can be easily shared through email or social media, plus with only a small amount of editing they can be published in a book or magazine, added to a video, or printed on paper or canvas and hung on a wall or in a gallery.
Smartphones have replaced point and shoot cameras, Instamatics, and Polaroids. But even higher quality cameras are now available for pros and serious hobbyists who want to take photography to the next level. Unfortunately for us history types and the Aunt Marthas of the future, many of the trillions of photos made each year will be lost, or at least unidentified or inaccessible on obsolete or damaged files.
The longest lasting and most easily accessible form of photography, and communication in general, is ink on paper. If it is not printed on a piece of paper, it will likely not be around in 50 years, much less a hundred years.
Importance of photographs
The importance of preserving photographs from the last 185 years since the invention of photography, for future generations cannot be overstated as far as I am concerned.
As important as photo prints and books are to the preservation of photographic images, it is also important to be able to share them in various ways and formats. The best way to do this is digitally. If the original is digital from a digital camera or smartphone, it is just a matter of filing and keeping track of where it is and important information about the photo. Fortunately, most digital cameras have metadata attached to the file that identifies the time the photo was taken, what camera, lens, and exposure were used and sometimes the location if the camera has GPS capabilities.
If the photograph was made before the year 2,000 it was almost certainly originally on film or some sort of plate. If we have the original negative, slide, or glass plate, that is like a home run. More than likely, we have an old print, which may or may not need some restoration. Whatever the case, whether it is a slide, negative, or print, we need to get it into digital form to share it or reproduce it.
Scanning – scanners & copy stands
That really just means taking a picture of it with a digital camera. Any digital camera will do, but there are special purpose cameras made especially for photographing flat photographs and art, usually up to 8.5x11, sometimes larger. These specialized cameras are called scanners.
Scanners come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Some scanners are made just to scan slides or negatives. Some will only do one size of prints, like 4x6. Some are more versatile and will do several sizes of prints, negatives, plus slides.
Before we had scanners, the most common way to copy photographs, or art, whether with a digital camera or to film was a copy stand. A copy stand is an apparatus that holds the camera parallel to the table and usually comes with lights that evenly illuminate the object to be copied. This is still the best way to digitize large images such as paintings, posters, or photographs larger than 11x14 or photographs that are not flat such as the convex photos common at the end of the 19th century. The copy stand can be either horizontal or vertical.
I use an Epson Perfection V600 Photo scanner for anything smaller than 11x14. 11x14 prints I scan in two passes and stitch them together in Photoshop.
The secret of Epson scanners and probably others as well, is to use the “professional mode.” There is a dropdown menu which allows us to choose “Fully Automatic,” “Home Use,” “Office use,” or “Professional use.” All this menu does is hide various controls or apply some pre-sets. Always use the professional mode if you want to get the most from the scanner. That mode gives us access to color correction, exposure control, opportunity to scan to different final sizes, scratch reduction, and more.
Whether using a scanner, copy stand, or just trying to hold your smartphone parallel to the image to be copied, labeling and putting the file and an appropriate folder is essential. There is nothing more frustrating than scanning an image and then not being able to find it on the computer.
The Memory Lab here at the library has a several types of scanners that you can use. If you haven’t tried it out, this could be a great resource, especially if you don’t want to invest in a scanner yourself.
Remember we scan photographs to be able to print them in books, to make additional copies, share them via email, or post on websites, or social media. Don’t scan them to preserve them. That is what the original prints or negatives are for. The originals go in the safe, fireproof file cabinet, or wherever you keep your valuables. Then email the digital files to relatives, print history or family books, or add them to cloud storage that you share with other relatives or interested parties.
I have a Dropbox folder that my brothers and their offspring can access, where we all post family photographs. It is mainly used for old pictures as we find them. Under that we have subfolders for various sides of the family or periods such as the 1930’s or the 1950’s.
Filing – Filing cabs of negatives – slides – digital files
One of the great things about digital files, whether from a digital original or from a scan is that they can be copied an infinite number of times without degrading. With analogy images, such as film, every time it is copied there is generational loss. Each copy is worse than the previous one. Since we can copy digital files many times, we can store them in many different places and have different versions.
That means that we can have a filing system that makes it easy to find what we are looking for. For example, on my computer I have a folder called Personal Photographs. Under that are a number of folders such as places and people. Under places I have USA and international. Those are divided by states or countries and so forth. When traveling I download all of our photos at the end of each day. I can later edit them in various ways. For example, I have a folder called Animals with a subfolder called Horses. If I photograph some horses on a trip, I copy those images to the Horse folder. They are still under “Colorado” or whatever, that is under USA, which is under “Places.”
The important thing is to have a system that makes since to you and stick with it.
File Explorer – Bridge
The basic system you already have. It might be called Finder or File Explorer, or File Manager depending upon what kind of computer you have. In addition to File Explorer, I use Adobe Bridge. Bridge comes with Adobe Photoshop but is a separate program that is just an overlay for Explorer or Finder, whatever your system calls it. Bridge allows you to view the files that are already on your computer in a clearer way, with bigger previews, easier editing, renaming, and so forth. Adobe Bridge also allows you to read the metadata associated with each file. This includes date, time, camera, lens and exposure, and any description or keywords you want to add, and so forth.
Some people like Lightroom which is a separate Adobe program which is primarily indexing software that also includes some editing and processing capabilities. There are others as well, but I decided to primarily use Bridge because I have been using it for 30 years and am very comfortable with it. I would find a system that you like and get very familiar with it and stick to a plan.
Editing
The next step is editing. For me this is the hard part. It means deciding what are the most important pictures based on some sort of plan. The idea is that we can’t keep everything and in fact, if we narrow our selections, the ones we keep become more valuable. This is what I understand curating to be.
A few years ago, my wife mentioned to a co-worker that she had too many dishes and needed to get rid of some. Her co-worked said, yes, but I love my China and special dishes. My wife said, me too, those are the ones I am keeping. The Walmart ones go to the thrift store. The moral is just keep the best stuff. Just keep the best of the best.
That said, I keep all of my photos, no matter what, but 90% go in a reject folder, sort of like the attic or basement of my computer. I never delete anything, but just get them out of the way. The best go into folders that I look at most often. Occasionally I go back and pull something out of the rejects file.
On a 24-day road trip last year, between my wife and I we made about 3,000 photos. I edited them down to about 150 really great photos. We put about 100 in a book and about 50 went on our travel website. If I ever go back and re-edit that first 3,000, I would probably have a different 150 heroes. Nobody wants to see 3,000 pictures from your vacation or a hundred pictures of your grandparents.
I save all of the pictures because we might have different editing criteria in the future.
Labeling
Along with editing, labeling is equally important. I usually rename the files to something more identifiable. This is especially true if they are old photos or from slides or negatives where there is little ID information on the original image. I am usually thinking about how a future generation will use this picture.
Restoration – Photoshop
I almost never see a photograph that can’t be improved, but I am a Photoshop Professional.
To me, let me open that picture in Photoshop and I will make it better. If you work with old photographs in any way, you need to at least learn a few basics of Photoshop or some other image editing software. Adobe Photoshop is the oldest and the best, but nobody would ever say it is easy to learn. I have been using Photoshop since it first came out in 1991, sometime eight hours a day, and I learn something new every day. This is partly because they are continually updating and improving it. This is called technology creep. If you understood it last year, well that was last year. It is different now.
That doesn't mean that you shouldn’t know how to do basic things like resize, cropping, color correction, and eliminating scratches and stains.
Sizing
Digital images are measured in pixels. Pixel is short for picture elements, the number of little pieces that make of the image. The more there are the more detail there is, up to a point. In practice the number of pixels tell us how big we can make the picture. If we are using the picture on a web site, the size in pixels will dictate the size on the screen. If we are making prints, the standard is 300 pixels to the inch or 300 DPI, (dots per inch.) For example, to make an 8x10 print, the file has to be 2400x3000 pixels.
2400 times 3000 is 7,200,000 pixels or 7.2 megapixels, 7.2 meg. Don’t confuse the image size with the file size. They are two different things. The image size can be adjusted to make different size prints or screen sizes within limits. One of the challenges I face regularly is customers sending me an image that is 300 x 400 pixels and ask for 16x20 print. A 16 x 20 image is 4800 x 6,000 pixels.
We might think of pixel size like horsepower in car. A 50 hp car will have trouble keeping up with traffic and will likely be dangerous. A 300 hp is a joy to drive with plenty of power. A 600 hp is not only unnecessary, but probably kind of scarry. So you want the correct amount of power or pixels for the job.
When we scan a photo, the scanner will ask what resolution we want. The answer is what size prints do we want to make? There is no need to have the scanner set higher than 300 DPI for the size prints you are going to make.
The camera settings are different. Always have your camera set to the highest possible resolution. It is easy to reduce the size. It is much harder to increase it. My camera is a 24-meg camera. That means that straight from the camera the image size is 4000 x 6000, or 13 x 20 inches. I can easily double that size with Photoshop to make 40-inch-wide prints or larger, and reducing the size is a snap.
Printing
To me a photograph is a printed image. As long as it is just a file in a computer, phone, or camera file, it is work in progress. If you want to preserve and enjoy it, get it on paper. My best photos are wall size and hanging on walls.
Photo books
Printing 4x6 snapshot size prints or passing out wallets may be out of style, but all of us cool kids are now printing photobooks. I love books. I like to buy books, read books, write books, but I especially like to put together photobooks.
There are a number of companies that print photobooks, and they are much nicer and a better value than putting pictures in albums. Shutterfly is one of the largest and they do a good job, but my current favorite is ZNO. ZNO books are very high quality and a good value for what you get.
For family history, you might want to print more than one or two books, in which case you will want to go it a short-run printer. Short run usually means up to about 500 or 1,000 copies. If you go that route, you will most likely do all of the design and layout yourself or with a hired hand. Adobe InDesign is made just for that purpose. Put the book together with InDesign, save it as a PDF and upload it to your favorite printer. Some printers love quantities of 50 or 100. You don’t have to print 1,000 or 10,000. The minimum print run to do a book is one.
I use Gorham Printing, but “Google Short Run Book Printers” and you will see a long list. There is no longer an excuse to not start cranking out books.
Web sites
If you have more time than money, a web site is a good way to publish family histories, travel stories, or just about anything that we want others to see. They don’t have to buy a book, and we don’t have to pay to have one printed. Plus, web sites are easily updated, and can be made to be easily found. Design features are unlimited. Anything you can image can be made into a website.
A few years ago, my wife and I were on one of our many cross-country road trips when we got to brainstorming about how we could share the photographs and stories of our travels with our friends and relatives. We knew that setting them down to watch home videos or even trying to get them to hold still long enough to look at a book didn’t work. We hit upon the idea of a web page. So, from our room at the El Tovar Hotel at the edge of the Grand Canyon, the day before Christmas eve, we registered the domain name TheJoyOfTraveling.net. When we got home, we started laying out a design plan. Now in a typical month about 1,500 people look at our personal travel page. That’s not millions, but it is a lot more than we expected from a personal travel log.
It takes a little bit of effort to come up with a unique domain name, register it, and put together a decent looking site. But this is easily within the ability of a dedicated hobbyist and can be extremely rewarding.
A web site is just one more way to show your work and reach a much bigger audience than you would ever expect.
As you are and Aunt Martha and Uncle Joe are busy collecting stories, pictures, and other documents, I hope you are envisioning a few books and a web site, and maybe something to hang on the wall as well. The possibilities are endless.
Yes, your family might even crown you queen!
