Use preservation-quality folders and boxes that are large enough to fully enclose and support the photographs. Avoid using acidic cardboard shoe boxes! Photographs in poor condition or that have special value can be individually stored in stable plastic sleeves made from preservation-quality polyester or polyethylene.
Store old photographs at constant temperatures below 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Keep the humidity levels in photo storage areas between 15% and 65%. Avoid storing old photographs in attics, basements, or garages where temperature and humidity tend to fluctuate. This can lead to mold, chemical decay, or brittleness.
An ideal container for storing printed pictures would have a sealed, water-resistant exterior, such as plastic, and soft but stiff dividers to separate prints on the inside.
Actual shoe boxes or similar-size containers work well for 4-by-6-inch and smaller photos, as do photo boxes sold at craft stores. Larger photos can be stored in labeled manila folders or larger document boxes.
Some old pictures and prints are incredibly rare and valuable, but age is no guarantee of value. There are thousands of 19th century prints on the market, many of which are small decorative bookplates (pages torn out of books) that may be worth a small amount if their subject has commercial appeal.
If you're going through a box of old pictures, don't just toss out the duplicates — shred them. Thieves can use your old pictures or, even worse, old IDs maliciously. When deciding what to shred, make sure your old pictures and identification are on the list.
These original wooden boxes are safe to use as long as they are sound and in good condition. Your plastic based photographs, such as negatives and slides, should always be stored in paper, for example, sleeves or four flaps. Plastic should not be used due to the concern over microenvironments.
Getting Started Saving Photographs
Store paper items in a clean storage area where you can keep the temperature and relative humidity (RH) moderate and stable. 68 degrees Farenheit or less and between 30-40%. Lower temperature is best for color photos.
Use an archival-quality box or album
Whether you prefer to stack photos in a box or arrange them in an album, it's best to look for a storage option that's free of acid and lignin (an acidic compound that gives trees their rigidity). It's also good to avoid dyes and recycled materials. That rules out shoeboxes.
ZipLoc bags are indeed low-density polyethylene. The drawback is that they have an inner coating of Butylated Hydroxy Toluene which will damage the photographs if they are stored in there long term.
Start by sorting the photos chronologically. Any other sorting option is just too confusing and crazy-making. Think big picture by dividing first into two piles according to century. Next, sort each pile by decade—even if that requires a wild guess—and so on until you have them in general order.
Store photographs in paper or plastic sleeves within acid-free folders. The folders can then be stored either vertically in flip-top archival boxes or flat in shallow print boxes. Alternatively, you can store the photographs in an archival ring binder.
Do not laminate your photographs. The glue will dissolve the emulsion on the photograph. Avoid using rubber bands or rubber cement which contain sulphur and degrades photographic emulsions. Avoid using paper clips as they can abrade or scratch the surfaces of prints or negatives.
When storing books and photos, humidity, temperature and light can cause irreversible damage to these precious items if not managed correctly: Photos can become permanently faded, rippled, cracked & brittle. Books can swell, become warped and the paper can become brittle too.
Store large quantities of photos by layering them between sheets of acid-free paper in metal or cardboard boxes marked acid-free. Large photo archive boxes can be easily stacked in a cabinet or closet, or even slid under a bed if storage space is at a premium.
Glassine paper has been used for many years for the storage of negatives and as an interleaving paper in photographic albums. Glassine is a smooth, glossy, semi-transparent paper.
The best format for scanning photos is typically a JPG or JPEG, as long as you keep compression to a minimum. A TIFF, which is an uncompressed image format is huge in comparison and cannot be displayed online. Professional photographers will often save their best images in both formats.
While scanning is more accurate and provides greater detail, which is helpful if you ever want to edit your photos, taking pictures with your smartphone camera can be a cheaper, faster, and more convenient option. Ultimately, it comes down to personal preference and what your goals are for digitizing your images.
If you take care of your prints, they could potentially last hundreds of years with no visible fading. Color photographs slightly less. Pigment inkjet prints on archival quality paper could last with no visible fading for 75 - 400+ years, depending on quality of framing and display conditions.
It's definitely worth keeping excellent quality negatives if you're a fine art photographer and sell your work. If you keep negatives, make sure you store them properly. Negatives are best stored in archival plastic negative sheets collected in a ring binder or archival quality envelopes.