QUESTION

I inherited family photos from the 1920's that were stored loose. As you might imagine, the result is that they have become somewhat curled, mostly on 2 diagonal corners. How do I straighten them to put them in an album?

ANSWER

From your description I am picturing loose prints, maybe wallet sized or even 4x6 inches on thin photo paper with a curve to them and with diagonal corners being the direction of the curve. I am presuming that the curve is short of "scrolling" at this point; that is, it is not so drastic that the photos begin to wrap back over on themselves.

There are many things to consider here. First, be patient and don't rush into any quick remedy. Next remove them from their acid environment as much as is practical, and be sure the new album you are planning is acid-free. 

Next, use some low-power magnification on a good sampling of the photos and look for the following: dust and dirt; mildew or mold (soft spots); evidence of bug infestation. Also be very careful in checking out the overall health of the emulsions -- look for evidence of cracking. Does air blown across the surface pose a threat to the emulsion? If not, I think this would be the preferred method for cleaning.

Next, I would find a test print among the collection -- one that represents the group but may not be your most priceless photo. I would also have available several sheets of white, acid-free, paper -- just regular bond 8.5 x 11 will do the trick. I would also get a plastic protective cover -- archival quality plastic, that these pieces of paper can fit into. You may want to cut the paper down in size a bit so that it is a loose fit rather than a tight fit inside the plastic cover.

Now, assuming that the test photo does not have evidence of emulsion cracking, I would clean the photo then place at least one sheet of white paper over it and one sheet under it and begin putting this "sandwich" into the protective plastic cover. How far and how fast this can be done depends mostly on the amount of curl you have. You may just get one end of the photo in at first. You don't want to put pressure on it, especially at first. You don't want to do this in extreme heat or direct sunlight, go for the cool more humid conditions with this test. It may even be a matter of days before you can get the photo all the way into the protective plastic, but keep working with it. On the other hand, you may be able to put it all the way in immediately. Just let it stay puffed up letting the minimal pressure from the protective cover do the straightening over a period of time. Watch out for folding at the edges and corners.

Please remember that this first print was to be a test print, so you keep the others safely in there acid-free storage until the test is finished. Part of the test has to do with the humidity of those white sheets of paper you are using to cover the curled print. Some of the uncurling is done by the moisture in the white paper. Of course it doesn't appear to have any moisture in it at all, but it does. You have some control over the amount of moisture in the white paper by where you store it. I wouldn't go so far as to place it on something damp, but you might experiment with putting it in your bathroom, maybe a half-hour after someone showered and leave it there for a period of time. In any case I would change the paper around the test print every time I check its progress. You might even add additional paper to top and bottom. You can reuse the paper again after it has sat out in the room again for several hours. As you can see, this test method involves quite a bit of photo handling, which is always dangerous to the print, so be very careful.

So keep your sandwich clean, and keep it cool, and let the humidity and time do their magic. Eventually you should have a test print that will flatten out. Experiment a little but don't get too impatient. Be careful not to leave the print in too moist an environment for too long. Remember that excessive moisture is not friendly for long-term storage, so once the photo flattens you must gradually bring the humidity down to the recommended level. A good way to do this is with these same tools, the acid-free white paper and the plastic cover. If the moisture content of the paper is at the ideal level for photo storage and you keep changing that which is in contact with your photo, eventually the photo will have that ideal moisture content too.

After the experiment, you should have a plan of action for your collection, and you should be able to do it much faster and with less handling than with the first one. But be careful not to stress the emulsions too much until you have tried several photos and you know what your limits are. You don't want to find out the hard way how fast you can do this little procedure. There are other methods of flattening that will work just as well, but this method is a gentle and conservative approach for old photos that could be slightly brittle.

One final word of caution. Because prints that were made in the 1920s are usually fairly brittle, I would stay away from albums with corner mounting and I would consider strong back support against cracking.

Best wishes on your project, I hope you enjoy your collection!

Consider buying a scanner and make your own digital copies of everything you want to preserve. Maintaining your digital photo library is mostly a matter of upgrading, copying and moving digital images to newer massive storage media. Don’t ever forget that digital files are not secure without following the rule of 3 – keep 3 reliable copies of every image stored in at least 2 locations.  Share your favorites with all your friends and family in digital format.