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• Caring for your photographic collections.
• Storage enclosures for photographic prints and negatives.
• Caring for color photographs.

Tagged As

• Decor
• Decorating
• Organizing Strategies
• Photos
• Storage

Precious memories or valuable collections — photographs fare best under the best care:

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1. Crank up the air conditioner if you’ve got one. Your color photos feel their best at 14 degrees Fahrenheit or below. Chances are if they live with you, they’re not going to get such cool digs. Yet high temperatures and high relative humidity damage your images. As a compromise, keep your home at as steady and moderate a temperature as you can, aiming for less than 60 percent relative humidity. Particularly avoid storing photographs in the attic or basement.
   
   
2. Make copies of the pictures you want to display in your home and keep originals in the dark, away from the damaging light rays bouncing around in your living room. They contribute to fading and yellowing of your images.
   
   
3. Choose the right papers and pages. If you are scrapbooking or intend to keep matting or other paper products next to your color photos, make sure they are non-buffered, acid free and lignin free.
   
   Tip: You might contact the maker to discover whether or not its paper products rise to the requirements of ANSI IT 9.2-1991 and have met the challenge of the Photographic Activity Test (PAT). These bits of information provide more assurance than the label “acid free.”
   
   
4. Be aware of adhesives, too. If you must use them, look for labels that specify safety for use with photos. Keep in mind that envelopes made for mailing purposes come with ready-to-wet adhesive on the lip of the flap. For your most precious photographs, consider investing in enclosures created especially for photos.
   
   
5. Avoid vinyl. If you would like to use plastic storage for color images that you want to last, choose polyester, polypropylene or polyethylene — cheaper isn’t going to be better here. Be aware that high relative humidity or water in the environment automatically make any plastic a monstrous neighbor to your photos because it traps moisture.
   
   
6. Give your photographs the white glove treatment — at any rate, the glove treatment. Your fingers produce sweat and oil that will hurt your images. It will also help to store your photographs in such a way that they won’t be handled much at all – mounted in photo-safe books, on boards, in frames, in long-term photo-safe storage.

If you are interested in cold storage or other special treatment for a valued photo collection, or you own tinted, retouched or very old photographs, read more at the sites provided under “quick-links” to your right.

References:

National Park Service Conserve O Grams 14/6 and 14/2

Library of Congress "Caring for Your Photographic Collections"