Organizing Your Photos for a Photo Book

6 Easy Steps to organizing you photos:

1. Gather all your pictures into one location.
2. Group by categories that make sense to you might choose one or a combination of these:
   1. Suggestion – use 1 or more of these:
      Chronologically: year, decade, season, or month
      Location: vacations, trips
      People: child, family member, friends, extended family
      Event: weddings, births, school years, ceremonies
3. Consolidate: Remove duplicates, similar pictures, blurry or bad shots, photos that are just taking up space. Be brave. You can't enjoy your favorite memories if they are cluttered in with thousands of unimportant ones.
4. Group into bin, boxes, or envelopes
5. Label with permanent marker or post-it notes names or locations you may want to remember.
6. Bring to Life's Sweet for professional, safe scanning and archiving or follow our easy steps for scanning yourself.

Storing Your Precious Photos

Remember that the safest way to preserve your photos is to bring them to Life’s Sweet to be scanned and archived! The average family has over 3000 photos stored in boxes and 54% of all Americans will experience a loss of these precious pictures during their lifetime. These old photos are deteriorating; the colors and images are fading. We can scan and restore these old photos to “like-new” condition, ready to print in beautiful Life’s Sweet photo books.

Here are a few tips for storing your old photos:

1. Take your photos out of "magnetic" or peel and stick albums. The materials they are made of, ordinary plastic, glue and cardboard, will damage photos over time. If you use a commercial photo album, look for one labeled "acid-free."
2. Remove any glue, tape, staples, rubber bands and paper clips that might stain, scratch or dent photographs before placing them in an album, storage box or frame.
3. Be sure to label the back of the photo gently with a permanent marker. Include the names and ages of those in the photo along with where the photograph was taken. This will help those who inherit your photographs identify them. Do not use a ballpoint pen to write on the back of photographs. The pressure of the pen may damage the photo and the ink will likely fade over time.
4. To store photographs individually, place them in plastic sleeves void of PVC, which can be purchased at photo supply stores. Plastic sandwich bags are a good, inexpensive alternative to plastic sleeves if special supplies aren't in your budget.
5. Store large quantities of photos by layering them between sheets of acid-free paper in metal or acid-free cardboard boxes. Large photo archive boxes can be easily stacked in a cabinet or closet.
6. When framing, use acid-free mats to keep photos from touching the glass and acid-free backboards to avoid deterioration of the image. If you are having a photograph professionally framed, be sure to tell the framer you want acid-free materials. They are more expensive (but worth it), so they won't use them automatically.
7. If you are framing a precious photograph, consider having it scanned before placing it under glass just in case it fades over time while on display.

Tips:

1. Wood and wood products, like cardboard and paper, harm photographs and should only be used if labeled "acid-free."
2. A good rule of thumb is storing photos where you are also comfortable; not too hot, cold, wet or dry.
3. Keep photos out of attics, garages and basements where they'll be subject to extreme temperature fluctuations and excessive humidity.

What You Need:

• PVC-free sleeves or plastic bags
• Acid-free or metal storage boxes
• Black permanent markers
• Acid-free paper, mats and backboards