Organizing family photos?

[Mr. Boyce]

I'm trying to figure out how you do it and I'm desperate for tips and suggestions.

 

I figure getting a few archival quality boxes for snapshots, organizing them chronologically. I don't know a good model or make of box. . .

 

I think albums for each family member makes sense, too. So I'll cull these from the overall pot of photos.

 

Of course, I have to buck up and be willing to throw out the junk photos or find someone to give them to.

 

If you can recommend any supplies, let me know. There seems to be a lot of stuff out there. . . but I don't want to be "scrapbooking" stuff and all that, just holding it in good shape.

[packsaddle]

I'm in the process of scanning everything - goes back quite a few generations, letters and other documents as well. Then give copies to all the descendents on DVD's or thumb drives. Then keep all the originals in that same box. Descendents can make the fateful cut someday in the future. Or else the rats can do their thing. That's what will eventually happen anyway. No illusions...we're not Egyptian kings.

[Mr. Boyce]

I've read into the whole digitize everything notion. But THAT media changes and disintegrates even faster than photo paper. I still have a couple of old floppies I can't use. Good film in a cool, dark place will last 100 years, while the DVD is already on the road to replacement as a format. So that's out. Besides, I got the prints already and they're VERY accessible and easy to use; no computer jockeying required.

[Mr. Boyce]

I've got too much caffeine going right now; sorry to sound **** y.

[packsaddle]

No problem, those are all good points.

I'm with you on the print thing but it's really time consuming, as you observe. Nothing is fool proof. Even for Egyptian kings, I guess.

[Twocubdad]

Look at www.universityproducts.com . They specialize in products for professional archivists. Much better than the crappy albums and stuff you get at the local Big-Box or even photo shops.

 

I'm the designated family historian, so over the years I've been given a number of cool heirlooms. Nothing worth any money -- it usually coste me money to keep it -- but things I want to keep and preserve. Univ. Prod. has a way to store ANYTHING.

[OneHour]

I did scan the troop photos and "digitized" them. Hard copies are too hard to keep up. Most parents ask the digital versions when it comes to their son's ECoH. I use Picasa to store my photos in the "Cloud."

My workflow is as follows:

1) Use Picasa to import from my SSD cards. To organize, I use the simple naming convention:

 

year_month_day_description

2011_01_17_Camporee

 

2) Use Picasa to do simple adjustment such as get rid of "red eyes" or add colors or change to bw. Picasa is easy to use that a scout, namely Historian, can use as well.

3) I upload it to Picasa.com (from the Picasa application)

4) I share the "album" with the Troop (ie. the link). I let them pick and choose what they want to download. To upload faster, I only upload Picasa recommended size about 2MB (enough to print good 4x6 size photos). If they want the orginal size, they can ask me for it by file name. (I take my pictures in RAW format). My ASMs and Historian can add their photos into it as well.

 

Good things about Picasa is: 1) it is free storage to a certain point(of course you can purchase additional storage space). 2) You can make it "private" for your viewing only or to those who has the link that you sent to them. 3) It is easy to download, fix, upload, and then share.

This is for the Troop.

 

Personally, I also use Picasa for home to share, but I have different workflow and I use Adobe Lightroom 3 to manage my photos and Adobe Element 9 to "Photoshop" my pictures (can't afford Photoshop!). I have well over 60Gig of photos that are backed up to two 2 TBytes drives as well as uploaded to Picasa. I did put my Nikon D80 to its paces. That was handed down to my oldest. Now, I am working on get the D7000 through its paces. Perhaps, that's why I like camping! It forces me to take time to go to nature and take time to enjoy my hobby!

 

1Hour(This message has been edited by OneHour)

[Tampa Turtle]

While I do not utilize the online Picassa much I highly recommend the free desktop download. It is really good at organizing photos, changing them while preserving the original file, and can even recognize faces so you can pull up all photos of "uncle joe" if you are willing to teach it. Amazing!

[qwazse]

You need the boxes and a reliable place to store them. But make it someplace accessible so that folks can go back to it as the years go by. I always enjoyed going down into my parent's basement (it stayed very dry) and just rifling through the boxes of snapshots. Shoeboxes worked very well for them and still do for us. There is nothing like sitting on the floor and pulling up picture after picture.

 

How I would improve on our system:

 

On the outside of each box, write the date range and list the subjects. You don't have to be overly detailed and get everyone who is in every picture, but if a box has a couple of good pictures of one person of place, you want to note that.

 

Then as a birthday or graduation rolls around or you make plans to revisit someplace, you can go along the boxes and pull a couple of relevant snapshots. Leave it to the youngns to scan or scrapbook. You just tag the photos on the back and send them along with a nice note.

[Eagle92]

Sorry to get into this late, but I'll review my archiving books for more info as it has been a while, and I am no longer archiving.

 

Some ideas I do remember.

 

1) With hard copy photos, write information IN PENCIL on the back of each photo. Ink in pens fade over time, and sometimes can ruin photos. Lead pencils avoid the problem.

 

2) If you are goign the electronic route make sure you do the following:

 

A) USE .GIF, .TIF and other "non-loosey" files like .jpeg. A "loosey" file takes up less space, but everytime you open it up, you lose pixals, which over time ruins the picture.

 

B)Make duplicate copies and store some offsite. If memory serves, the archival standard is 4 copies: one to work with, a backup to work with, one in storage, and one in storage off-site. What I've done is mailed out multiple copies of photo disks to family members, and one set is in the bank.

 

C) This can be expensive, you want a very good, quality disk to store the info on, I believe one that has elements of gold on the disk. I admit I haven't done this due to expense, but the NC archives uses these disks, and it's recommended in the literature.

 

D) Whenever a new format comes out, UPDATE YOUR RECORDS TO THE NEW FORMAT ASAP!!!!!!!!! This is very critical as if you don't and the program you originally put your photos in is not available, you are in trouble.

 

True stories, there is an entire warehouse of information from one of NASA's probes inthe 70s that no one is able to access the information on because the program to read it is unavailable.

 

Also it is easier to obtain and read records from every war and coflict in US history prior to the late 1980s, than it is to read Desert Shield/Storm records, b/c those records are on electronic formats that are no longer in use. Heck even the forms on micro film and fiche are easier to access if there is no reader than the Desert Shield/Storm records, all you need is a light and a magnifying glass and you can read the microfilm/fiche.

 

Personally when transferring my files from my old computer to the new one a few years back, I was just barely able to transfer some of the older pictures because of older programs. And some of my documents have been lost as I was unable to transfer them to a new format.

[Tampa Turtle]

When I started digitizing and consoldating my digital photos I got a Seagate Backup drive (A tetrabyte for about $79) and it automatically backs up the photos and documents. We would grab the drive in an emergency.

 

About 4 times a year I burn some CD's of the files and place in the Safe Deposit Box.

 

This is because when we did a 30 minute bug out during Hurricane Charlie in 2004 the main things we took were laundry baskets of photos off the walls...that and the kids.

[packsaddle]

Heh, heh, I can relate to what Eagle92 wrote. I particularly agree about that part about pencil instead of ink. The only thing I would add is that India ink is permanent. That's why it is used for herbarium labels, etc. The other inks, however, are subject to loss.

Also agree with that format change. I still have an old working AT just for that purpose, plus most of the odd format drives between that time and now (and an array of intermediate MAC machines - my kids are going to have to haul a LOAD of junk to the dumpster when I croak). I used to have a box of data on paper tape...alas, my access to a reader is long gone so I recycled that stuff. Pretty sure I already had that data on a 5.25 floppy, lol.

[Tampa Turtle]

Yeah my wife still has some code on an 8" floppy LOL. I got a DOS box I still use.

 

Format change is a serious issue; I am pretty sure there is some resources online that discuss it. Maybe some archivist at the Library of Congress could help; I have emailed a few questions there on paper and print preservation and they were very nice and helpful.

[Eagle92]

Last I heard, no one, not NARA, not LOC, and not DOD could do anything about loss of info due to format change, except to advise updating info regulary.

 

However when I was in grad school for the MLS, there was a proposal by NARA and DOD, not too sure about LOC's involvement, to create a mainframe that could not only update info from out of date programs, but also have the ability to integrate newer technology into the system as it came out. Don't know how far it went, but if memory serves the proposal was over $1 billion dollars.

 

TT,

 

I'ld not only put copies of disks inthe bank, but also mail copies to family members. that way if things happen the backup are out of town.

[NealOnWheels]

Eagle92 wrote:

 

"A) USE .GIF, .TIF and other "non-loosey" files like .jpeg. A "loosey" file takes up less space, but everytime you open it up, you lose pixals, which over time ruins the picture."

 

The actual terms is "lossy" and "lossless".

 

JPEG is uses a "lossy" compression meaning it looses image information to perform compression. However, by selecting the amount of compression you can have a reasonable tradeoff between image quality and storage space.

 

GIF is a "lossless" compression. It can only store 256 colors so for photography it is not the best choice. It does require very little storage space compared to other choices.

 

You will not "loose" pixels in any format by viewing them. You will loose image information everytime you use editing software on a "lossy" image