CR5 Issue 146 July 2017

I recently inherited several boxes
of family photographs, with
images dating from Victorian times
- when photography was in its infancy
- right up to the first decade
of the new millennium.
Some pictures were stored carefully
in albums but others were
roughly crammed into folders and
envelopes. Unsurprisingly, some
of the older items were beginning
to show signs of deterioration,
including rips, stains and tiny spots
of mould. While I felt very privileged
to be the keeper of this important
archive, it was a reminder
that my own family snaps and VHS
tapes were packed in the loft: all in
danger of going the same way as
my newly-acquired collection.
After taking stock of all this precious
material - which documented
over 100 years of my family’s
history - it occurred to me that I
had a responsibility to preserve it
for future generations.
PRESERVING FAMILY PHOTO-
GRAPHS
When it comes to the future of
a family photo collection you
are faced with a straightforward
choice: either divide the photographs
up between a select group
of relatives, or digitise the entire
archive so it can be enjoyed by
everyone.
While the first option is quick and
simple, it’s not entirely satisfactory.
Unless the collection includes
duplicate images, no-one will hold
a complete set of family photos.
There is also a chance that in future
someone will throw out their
part of the collection because they
no longer have space to keep it.
Converting hard copy photos to
digital images may involve a lot
of work, but it ensures that the
archive will be passed on from
generation to generation. Restoring
and digitising photographic images
can also become an enjoyable
hobby: there’s great satisfaction in
Hobbies
transforming faded, mould-spotted
and torn pictures into images
that look as fresh as the day they
emerged from the darkroom.
If you decide to digitise, you will
need a computer with enough disk
space to store the photographic
files you are creating. You’ll also
need some kind of photo editing
software. According to the magazine
What Digital Camera?, there
are several good image manipulation
packages that are completely
free to download. Top of their
list is the oddly-named Gimp,
which works like a basic version
of the industry-standard software
Photoshop. Gimp allows you to
do everything from cropping and
resizing to altering exposure and
colour balance. It also has the
same invaluable ‘clone tool’ as
Photoshop, which allows you to
heal the spoiled parts of a photo
by copying an undamaged area
over the damaged spot.
CONVERTING YOUR SLIDES
During the 1960s and 70s a craze
for slide photography meant that
many amateur snappers temporarily
stopped taking conventional
photos. If you have boxes of slides
that you need to convert to digital
files, you will need an additional
piece of equipment. Slide scanners
start at around £16 (for a device
that can be used together with a
smartphone), while standalone
scanners can cost up to £125.
VHS VIDEOS TO DVD
I had a shock recently when
someone told me that analogue
videos and home movies are
susceptible to the same degradation
as photographic slides, prints
and negatives. VHS tapes, Hi8 and
Video8 are magnetic media: as the
magnetic particles gradually lose
their charge, the tape deteriorates.
Depending on how carefully
you store your tapes, you can
expect at least a 20% reduction in
Building A Future For Family
Memories
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By Kate McLelland
playback quality after 10-25 years.
The easiest way to convert videos
to DVDs is to connect a video-cassette
recorder (VCR) to a PC via an
analogue-to-digital video capture
device. You’ll need to record the
VHS video to your PC’s hard drive
and then write the recorded video
to DVD, using the DVD writer
installed on your PC. Be warned,
however, that VCRs are slowly
becoming obsolete, so if you have
a large number of VHS tapes to
convert and don’t already have a
VCR, this may be a good time to
buy one. A medium-priced video
capture device costs between £25
and £50, while a VCR costs from
£30 upwards (refurbished models
may cost less).
If you only have a few tapes to
convert, you might consider using
a professional service. It’s worth
checking online for the best deal:
Asda Photo charges £27 per tape,
while web-based conversion
specialists such as digitalconverters.co.uk
typically charge under
ten pounds for a single VHS or Hi8
tape.
Once your family photos and
videos have been converted into
a longer-lasting format, the next
step will be deciding the best way
to share them. You could burn
them to DVD and give them out to
family members, upload them to a
cloud file-sharing system or create
a family website. Be aware that if
you choose cloud or web-hosting
services to house your digital files,
you may end up paying an annual
fee.
Thanks to my inherited collection,
digitising family images now occupies
much of my spare time, and
I’ve even started to help friends
who want family photos restored.
It’s rewarding to know that, once
converted to a digital format,
these important visual records will
go on giving pleasure far into the
future.