trip down memory lane and deciding which
photos to digitize and which to discard. ;is
took a dozen long sittings because I had to
disassemble many of the books and carefully
peel the photos o; the pages. For many photos, the decision was easy: Toss those repeated
sunset scenes, out-of-focus shots and others
that didn’t grip me. But others were more dif-;cult. Who were those people at the dinner
table? Would this picture be important to
somebody else in my family? And hardest of
all: Once I discarded a picture, it would be
gone forever.
As to why not just digitize all the pictures
myself, the answer was time and energy. My
plan was to use Costco’s Photo Center to scan
all the saved photos. For 32 cents per photo, I
would save signi;cant time and get high-res-olution ;les on a convenient DVD.
Saving the important stuff
As I sorted through the bins, I came
across a number of priceless photos and documents that I simply couldn’t conceive throwing away. Examples include original
black-and-white professional photos from my
parents’ wedding, early family portraits taken
by a professional photographer (I can only
imagine the expense on a limited budget), the
;rst letters between my parents, birth and
marriage certi;cates, and more. My plan for
the letters and historical documents was to
scan them myself, then store them in one last
single portable ;le bin. Maybe future generations would ;nd them valuable, and I could
always ;nd a corner in the closet where I
could tuck a single bin away.
My home printer/scanner was su;cient
to handle the documents and letters. Its so;ware automatically digitally removes dust and
severe scratches from the original document.
Some independent so;ware programs do this
as well. It’s also important to keep the scanner
bed clean with a dust-free lens cloth.
I then created a “Family Archive Project”
folder on my computer and added subfolders
for all the documents. ;ese included sub-
jects such as “Important Documents,” “Mom
and Dad’s Wedding,” “Military Photos” (Dad
was a Marine in World War II, and there were
many photos of him in his uniform), “Ocean
Photos” of our family summer vacations at
the beach and so on.
Organizing and tagging
;e next steps were to take the photos to
my local Costco Photo Center to get scanned
(the process takes three to four weeks), then
organize the new digital ;les in my home
computer and add electronic notes.
If the old photo albums were perfectly
organized by year, I could have easily created
folders such as “Summer 1970” and so on.
But this wasn’t the case, so I had to do some
laborious detective work to name the photos
and place them in the right folder. Also, some
of the photos had notes on the back, giving a
date, location and so on, in my dad’s distinctive handwriting. For these, I opted to “tag”
the document—that is, embed metadata,
which is essentially the electronic version of
the old scribbled note on the back of a photo.
How to do that depends on your computer. For mine, which runs on Windows, I
used Photo Gallery, a program that came with
the computer. It enabled me to add a caption,
a people tag (like “Mom” and “Dad”) and a
descriptive tag (simple is better, like “Family,”
“Kids,” “Beach”). You’ll have to see what program your computer has for this task; several
programs are available for purchase.
Finally, it was the moment of truth: I
backed up my project onto an external hard
drive and an archival-grade DVD. And with
bittersweet reluctance, I forced myself to
throw away all the photo albums and the
storage bins that had gone from basement to
basement over the past decade. ;e narrative
of our lives had become digital.
The digital world
Now that the old photos and documents
are digitized, I can share them with my family
members, keep a library in the cloud and
tackle a variety of creative projects with them,
such as using the photos on calendars, mugs
and cards. I considered making a condensed
photo book through the Costco Photo
Center—which is as easy as sliding photos
onto a pre-built page—as a Christmas present
to all my brothers and sisters. I also looked
into making a digital scrapbook, which would
require the purchase of a so;ware program—
there are dozens of clever ideas on Pinterest.
But in the end, I decided to simply
present the ;les to my family
members on a DVD. ;ey can
put together their own slide-
shows or other projects. ;e
important point is that all
those old photos and docu-
ments—the story of a family—
a
z
If the old photo albums were perfectly
But this wasn’t the case, so I had to do some
et
h
date, location and so on, in my dad’s distinc-
n
i
which is essentially the electronic version of
i
puter. For mine, which runs on Windows, I
t
descriptive tag (simple is better, like “Family,”
o
o
l
o
drive and an archival-grade DVD. And with
w
• National Archives,
“How to Preserve Family
Papers and Photographs”:
archives.gov/preservation/
family-archives
• Library of Congress,
“Personal Archiving”:
digitalpreservation.gov/
personalarchiving.
•
techlicious.com:
Search “Tips to keep your
digital photos organized.”
•
cnet.com:
Search “How to use
iphoto-events.”
•
dummies.com:
Search “Tagging
pictures in Windows 8. 1
Photo Gallery.”
Resources
THE COSTCO CONNECTION
Costco’s in-warehouse Photo Centers
offer services to digitize your photos,
as well as old movies on tape. Also,
you can create attractive photo
books at the online Photo Center at
Costco.com. Printers with built-in
scanners are available in the
warehouses and on Costco.com.
m
