Yes, I had some like what you describe. Removing them from the crumbling paper and dusting them off is the most important step. Doing that alone may be sufficient, however the glue will probably still accelerate fading and aging. With mine, I noticed that the glue had formed dots about half-inch in diameter that projected up a bit off the back of the photo. Where the photo backing was heavy, I was able to take an exacto-knife and cut the glue pieces down and in some cases completely remove them without damaging the photo. Even if you can get rid of most of the glue's bulk it will be worth the labor if the photos are important to you. I would not attempt to remove the glue spots if doing so would endanger the image.

You can expect the glue to cause image fading over time so I would make the best copies you can while they are still looking good. I do also have a few pictures older than what you describe where the glue spots have faded through to the front of the image and you can easily see their pattern on the image itself.

There are many things to consider with this question.

First, be very patient and don't jump into making quick drastic changes in the collection. In its present state, this collection may still outlive you. The discovery that the old mounting boards are acidic is of no surprise to me. We live in an acidic world. Much of our naturally occurring environment breaks down to acid components including most paper. The degree of acidity is the key to how many years you have, and if your collection is normal, I doubt that it is strongly acidic. I would begin by making the storage environment as acid free as practical while you are working you’re your collection (but try to avoid over-handling).

Next examine the collection under low power magnification. I would check the overall health of the emulsions. Is there evidence of cracking (one of the signs of an acid environment)? Can you use air to clean with or is there evidence of flaking? Try "canned-air" blowing on a few samples and then examine them again to see if there was any loss or damage. Examine the backings for soundness and support. Hopefully you will find that the collection can withstand a modest air cleaning followed by copying with film, or scanning, or both. Do the copying step for each photo before further steps are taken even if it takes a few years to get through this process. This way you have something of value to share with the other family members and to pass on to the children who do not later inherit the originals. By sharing, you can also often get reimbursed for some if not all of your copying costs. W

ith your initial examination I would group the collection into three categories: those to remain in their mounts, those to be removed from their mounts, and those to have modifications made to their existing mounts. Those to remain in their mounts (and this could be the bulk of the collection) are good solid mounts that have been mounted in such a way as to make it very difficult to remove them without risking damage to the photo. Those to have their mounts removed are any that will come apart fairly easily or where the mount is threatening the immediate health of the image (but don't remove the mount until you are ready with a new means of archival support). Those to have their mounts modified would be the hard to remove mounts or the frail images with problem areas that require part of the backing to be cut away to stop a problem from spreading to the image.

So you categorize the collection and isolate those photos with problems. You either separate them physically into their three categories, or you take notes that remind you of what needs to be done with each photo. Now that you have a plan you go to work, systematically going through your collection and working your plan as time, money, and patience allow. There is probably no need to rush. There is a learning curve to much of this, so if you plan to do it yourself, you may want to begin with some of the less important photos.

By the way, I am a real advocate of doing as much of it yourself as possible. No one will care for those images as well as you will and before long you'll know what you are doing. By the way, how are you doing at getting all the people, places, and occasions in the collection identified? You have plenty of time for the cleaning, stabilizing, copying, and archiving, but the clock is running much faster on the identifying chore -- please don't let it run out!

The problem with the freezer bags is that they are probably not made of archival quality plastic, though some may be, I haven't checked on this for a while. You see, most of the formulations for these things are subject to both economic constraints and the current political climate. Economics enters in when we want a quality product but the production plant is mainly concerned about production -- thus impurities get into the plastic that may be harmful to photos. The most recent political climate that I am aware of calls for plastics that will break down quickly in a landfill -- thus chemicals would be added to enhance that breakdown and almost certainly photos with it. So remember all plastic products are not created equal.

As far as separators go, I use archival plastic photo sleeves, archival sheet plastic, or even acid-free white paper.

I use denatured alcohol for nearly all my work (ethanol) -- usually diluted 50/50 with deionized water. I dilute mine to help control the evaporation time giving me more time to work with it on the Q-tip -- also the water does dissolve some of the dirt. Test anything you use first on an "unimportant" photo. Especially look for any white residue left on the surface after drying, or dark spots, or a slight fading of the image.

This is not an uncommon problem, and it's a very delicate issue to address. 

First, I would clean that glass and have the best copy made from the original that I could. You might consider digitizing it through scanning. With a high resolution flatbed scanner you might be able to get the glass to touch the glass in such a way that no reflections or rainbow-like (Morraise) patterns occur when it is scanned. That extra 1/8 inch distance from the scanner may effect the focus adversely but probably not. 

After doing all this, I would compare the copies to the original and ask myself if I really want to risk doing permanent damage to the original to try to remove it. If the glass is not broken or chipped, I would think that in most cases the answer to this question would be "no." You may consider re-packing and framing the photo with archival quality materials and it should do well for another 45 years and beyond. Remember that about the only risks glass pose to photo longevity are scratches, breakage, and adhesion (which is the problem you have).

After I 've discouraged you from trying it, if you are still intent on removing the photo from the glass, then I would proceed as follows: Remove everything but the photo itself and the glass. Find a clean container with a base that is larger than the photo and put an inch or so of room-temperature, filtered water in it. Add Kodak Photo-flo solution in about the concentration they recommend in their directions. 

Carefully place the clean photo in the water, glass-side down without making any wave-type motion. Support the photo as it is immersed so that there is no pressure on the interface between glass and photo. 

Soak the photo without touching or pulling on it until it is soaked through. Depending on the paper thickness, it could even take hours for the water to completely soak through. The delicate emulsion will swell, and what you hope is that it will cling more fully to the paper than to the glass. It could also pull away from both and then reattach itself back to the paper. 

So when it is fully soaked through, I would place a flat support on the photo as it lays in the water. A piece of plastic sheet or even metal would do. Then while pushing against the glass with the photo sandwiched between, pull glass and all out and lay it on the counter with the glass side now up. 

Look carefully at the photo to see if it appears to be fully soaked. Slide the support partially out of the way and pull back on a corner of the paper as you look to see which way the emulsion will go. Perhaps you can encourage it to stay with the paper. Peel it back very slowly. If it is not fully soaked, it will tear. If it is over-soaked, the emulsion may float or buckle. If the paper is deteriorating, the emulsion could favor remaining with the glass. If you do get the separation to occur, don't touch the emulsion until it is fully dry. 

As you can guess, this process is extremely risky and does carry a bit of a learning curve. If it fails, what you might have is the equivalent of a glass slide instead of a print, or more likely you'll just have a big mess. 

Now you can see why I think the best solution is just to leave it attached to the glass.

Yes, but removing a photo stuck to glass is risky, that is -- you need to be prepared to lose the photo. Because of the risk, most people end up choosing not to attempt it on their most priceless photos. Instead they just consider the photo and glass to be as one unit, sometimes even changing frames etc.

In any event if this photo is of importance to you I would have a high quality copy made before you do anything. Because of the glass (reflections), this isn't easy either. I have had pretty good success at making such a copy out-of-doors just before dark or just at dawn with a 35 mm camera and, Kodak Royal Gold 100 film.

Another way to copy the image is to do a high resolution scan. Scanning at 300 dots per inch is usually plenty unless you plan on enlarging beyond the size of your original. Most prints do not enlarge well at greater than double the original size.

After making copies if you are still determined to try and remove your original print from the glass, here is how I would do it. First clean the outside of the glass then remove all the framing materials, dust, etc. leaving only the print and glass with the print face down on the glass. If your print is bound to a mounting board this must be carefully removed. Next, find a container that can hold the glass/print lying face down and horizontally in an inch of water. Place the glass/print in the container first, then add filtered, room temperature water. Add a few drops of Kodak Photo-Flo solution and let the print/glass sit undisturbed for a couple of hours. With some types of photo paper, the print will actually float free. When you feel that the print is fully soaked you can begin to try and carefully peal back a corner of the print. If the print doesn't easily respond then it needs more soaking time. Be very patient and careful. The goal is for the photographic emulsion to be more attracted to the paper than to the glass. This usually works when the photo paper is healthy and most of the print is still free of the glass.

After liberating the print, air dry it in a dust free place on a clean fiberglass screen. Watch out for excessive curling as the print dries.

Yes, I had a number like that too. You cut them away from the black paper first, then you can even cut down the globs of glue. You probably won't need to cut off all the glue, just cut it way back. For me, a big stainless steel pancake turner did the trick in cutting away from the paper, and an exacto knife cut off the lumps of glue.

First before you do anything else you will want to scan your photos so that you have backup copies. Scan them with a photo scanner at a high resolution so that your pictures will be the best quality possible. Have prints made from these scans and if you like them you may prefer to use your scans as your new originals and not even deal with the old album.

If, after you've made high quality copies you still want to reclaim your originals from the old album, you wouldn't want to rush into removing the pictures from their pages. Doing so could damage them even more than leaving them where they are. Start first with your least important photos in the album because there is a learning curve – it may take a few photos to learn the technique. I prefer to use a flat stainless steel pancake turner or even a thin putty knife with an exacto knife on hand. Use these tools to carefully and laboriously separate the photos, one at a time. The black paper is actually what makes the separation possible. Work the blade into the black paper without bending or blistering the original images. After separating two back-to-back photos, you can usually cut back on the bulk of the glue button, but often part of this button and maybe even some of the black paper may still be left when you're finished.

Make sure to support the frail photos from bending in the new albums.

My first choice would be to have the old photos copied (you should do it anyway) and put the copies in the scrapbook as stand-ins for the originals. Keep the originals in individually wrapped archival envelopes. 

My second choice would be to purchase some archival quality heavy polyethylene photo sleeves for your scrapbook. Make these oversize—i.e., if the photos are 2x3 inches, buy 4x6 or 5x7. Buy some very heavy rag board from your art store and cut this into custom-made photo mounts that fit inside the polyethylene—and the old photos fit inside of them. This gives the structural protection you need (front and back) for your old photos. I usually leave the old photos on the hard-backed paper, but before putting them in the new sleeves, check each one for rot (softening) and other problems, and actually cut away these problems in the boards with a knife.

Yes! I had a similar experience. Do you have an old stainless steel pancake turner in your posession? If so, or if you have something like it with smooth edges rather than a blade, you can turn it into an old photograph remover. Carefully work it between the photo and the black paper -- the black paper album is probably going to be destroyed in this process. When you push against the paper, be sure it is what tears or peels away and not the photograph. If you have some back-to-back photos attached to the same piece of album page then you really have to get tricky. Go very slowly with the pancake turner (you may even need to use a utility knife for part of this but stay with the pancake turner if you can). If you do it correctly and very slowly you will find that the black paper will split and part of it will stick to the photo on one side of the page, and part to the other. Once you have liberated a photo from the page, lay it face down on a flat table on a piece of white acid-free paper or plastic sheeting and use the pancake turner to scrape away the last of the black paper and glue. Cut away all the paper and only as much of the glue as is needed to see the writing on the back of the photo. When all done, see my information on cleaning and stablilzing photos and enjoy your collection.

Lignin could be considered more harmful than acid because it breaks down to acid and another photo-harmful compound besides (phenol). I am enclosing what I have written about lignin which is pretty much all I know on the subject:

IS YOUR PAPER ACID-FREE, LIGNIN-FREE, PH-BUFFERED, NON-BUFFERED, ALKALINE, ARCHIVAL QUALITY?

Do you get confused at all these paper-type buzz-words? Perhaps a brief (over-simplified) explanation will be helpful. Wood products, including most paper, contain a natural compound called lignin, which over time produces photographically harmful break-down products of two varieties: acids and odorous substances (phenols). Besides the lignin problem there is an "old" paper-milling process where sulfuric acid is used to manufacture paper, and a "new" process (which is slowly replacing the old) using limestone in paper making. Most newspaper and craft papers are examples of lignin paper made with the acid process. When lignin-containing paper is made with the new process, or when calcium carbonate is added to paper processed the old (acid) way, it is said to be "pH buffered." Extra calcium carbonate is added to these neutralized, buffered papers to account for lignin breakdown to acid that may occur in the future. This pH-buffered paper is usually okay to be associated near photographs intended to be preserved for a lifetime. One exception is that some color dyes contain their own acids or pH-sensitive chemicals which react with the calcium carbonate.

To be even more safe in the long run, look for acid-free, lignin-free, non-buffered paper products. Archival-quality paper or board does not need to be pH buffered, because it is lignin-free and contains no other sources of acid to neutralize. Still, some grades of archival paper are purposely made to be a little on the "alkaline" side of the pH scale to protect them from our human environment, which tends to be somewhat acidic.

I think you raise some very good questions and you actually caught me in the process of updating some of my information to address these very concerns. I am of the school of thought, as you are also, that advocates digitizing with a multi-storage scheme. I personally still recommend 300 pixels per inch of desired future maximum print size. Yes, by today's standards that makes for a gigantic file for a poster but remember that 10 years from now this may only be a medium sized file.

To me the larger question is the backup or storage scheme selected for this finished digital library. We need to start thinking more like a banker does when it comes to digital file security. A banker does not feel that his files are secure unless they are copied to at least three different kinds of media in a minimum of two physical locations. One nice thing about living 20 years into the initial digital boom is that we don't need to have a bankers budget available to finance our storage scheme either. DVDs are one very affordable media but I would rotate them often -- maybe every 5 years. I personally am becoming very partial to large external hard drives. I always buy the largest size in the "dirt cheap" category -- you know, the one just before the dollars-per-gigabyte skyrockets. Yes this saves me money but more than that it gives me confidence that I am buying well established technology for storing my library. Then every time I go visit my daughter I take the external hard drive with me. She backs it up to her hard drive and copies her files onto mine. I send copies of my most important photo-heritage files to all my relatives and keep copies at work too. I truly believe that redundancy is the secret to maintaining our photo libraries. Flash drives and newer technology may one day easily accommodate our giant photo libraries in an even better way. So please keep in mind that the old adage "don't put all your eggs in one basket" really applies to digital photo libraries.

Yes I think that you understand it correctly. But there are several things to consider here. From my experience I have found that if we could assume optimal quality photos, media and scanning devices, then generally the best quality scans would come from original transparencies (negatives or slides), the next best from original prints, then comes copy transparencies of the original print, and last would be copy prints.

But the scan from a well made copy negative can be very close to the same quality as scanning the original print. I have actually scanned and touched up copy negatives then later found the original print and have chosen not to redo my work. In these cases a major consideration for not redoing them has to do with the amount of time involved in the touchup process which would also have to be repeated.

An advantage to going the copy negative route is that you get a nice backup photo in the process.

I have also found problems in dealing with original or copy negatives that have caused me to use the original or copy prints instead. These problems have mostly involved scratches and other wear marks on the negatives. I can see another potential problem in the "do-it-yourself" person working with transparencies. The quality scanning equipment for handling this media is not as readily available as is the equipment for scanning prints, though it is gradually becoming more common and inexpensive.

If you end up using a common document scanner to do your scanning be sure to use photo touchup software to correct the tone range problems or you will not be satisfied with your results. In fact, touchup software is a good idea for most any photo scan.

Yes, I sometimes scan the back of a photo, especially if there is information on it that gives historical details about the picture. I also scan if I want future generations to see a sampling of someone’s handwriting. If you only have captions, you could type these into a Word document cross-referencing the file names. You could even bring "thumbnails" of the photos into the document to keep with the captions. You could also convert this document to html.

Some of the high-end photo editing software packages such as Adobe PhotoShop have provisions that allow you to store the caption with the photograph. The trouble with this is that not everyone can see the caption. Then there are some photo formats that keep the caption as part of the format. The problem here is that these formats have not been universally embraced up until now.

I think that the real answer to your question is tied to the new digital camera revolution that is beginning to take place. Things haven't fully settled out in this area yet, but when they do, I am confident that there will be an obvious software solution emerge which incorporates cataloging photos with captions, etc. There are already a good many such software packages out there vying for market share. Eventually, three or four will emerge as the best products and we will all move our photo collections to them.

Yes, I think that what you read from Kodak would be a correct estimate -- 20 years. But there is a little more to it than the paper, namely the ink. In working to get the market share in inkjet printing, HP, Epson and many other companies have substantially improved the durability of their inks (and papers) within the last 3 years. So part of the question for your clients is how long ago did they buy their inkjet printer? If it's not pretty new then they are probably using a less stable ink.

Inkjet color printing of photos is not unlike ink style printing of books, the inks do fade after a time, but the proper kind of paper will greatly reduce the fading. The amount of direct and indirect sunlight that the photos get is also an important issue.

I prefer to encourage people not to think of the printed photo as the original. The original is what is being stored in the digital image. I focus on duplicating and storing those digital files properly. Then when the print fades, I will just print out another one of equal quality.

This is a very thought-provoking question and the only honest answer I can come up with is to say that the technology of "buffered papers" is too new to know for sure what their long-term effects will be on photo storage. All that scientists can do in testing a new technology like this is to create conditions that appear to be the same as true aging -- called accelerated aging conditions. But archivists are too conservative to accept anything but "tried and true" methods. PH-buffering appears to be "true" but there hasn't been a sufficient passage of real time for them to be convinced of the "tried" part.

To understand the problem, lets review the definition of "pH-buffered." In the case of paper, it means for a paper to become resistant to a change in pH. This is done by adding chemicals to the paper. Exactly what chemicals are added and in what proportions is the subject of on-going experimentation. Those who do the experiments have more than one goal in mind. Causing the paper to hold up in time may be a greater concern to them than causing the photograph on the paper to hold up. So what the chemicals themselves will do to the photograph over a period of time is a valid concern.

To further complicate the issue, there is still more than one paper-making process. Acid is still used in some processing to create paper. If this kind of paper were used for photographs, a reasonable question to ask would be is the paper-buffering process merely an attempt to add chemicals that will offset the natural paper degradation or slow down the aging from within? Then too, remember that we live in an acidic environment, so a paper that is not now acidic could in time change to acidic from without. For this, buffering sounds like a good idea and we have great hopes for it. But still, if you were recommending a process for long-term storage, would you go with "tried and true" or would you go with one that is still under considerable experimentation?

When it comes to the image (not the printer), ppi (pixels per inch) and dpi  (dots per inch) are the same thing. They are used interchangeably or could be considered as equal. I convert my digital images to 300 ppi for storage purposes.

As for file format, tiff has been a great standard for me, and I have never gotten into trouble with it yet. In my opinion Flashpix (fpx) is a better idea, but as yet it hasn't been embraced universally. JPG has been embraced universally but does give some image degradation, especially with repeated changes and saves.

You pose an excellent question about scanning resolution. I think companies sell them because technology has advanced to that resolution, not necessarily that it will be useful to the common application. Ultra-high scanning resolution is helpful in the extraordinary situation (such as in scanning books that have been microfilmed).

I still shoot many photos with 35mm film. When scanning that media, it requires 2400 dpi to get the same number of pixels as one could get by scanning an 8 x 12 print at 300 dpi. So if one has both the print and the negative, which will give the better quality scanned image? That's hard to say; often it would be better from the print, especially if it was made using portrait-style touch-up techniques. If there was significant dust on the negative, scanning at 2400 dpi makes that dust 8 times larger which may not have been bothersome on the print, but now becomes quite objectionable. On the other hand, the negative has so much more potential to record millions of colors accurately, and it is usually subject to so much less color degradation. So the answer becomes a matter of equipment capability, opinion or individual taste. I appreciate the option to go both ways.

For genealogy, you are probably scanning mostly prints from old family albums. For those the quality of the photo paper sometimes becomes the deciding issue. In scanning at a resolution greater than 600 and then printing enlargements; the texture of the original photo paper may become objectionable (this is often not the case with tintypes). But if that is the only way one can tell what a particular ancestor looked like, then the objection is usually unimportant.

One rule of thumb that has worked well for me is to try hard to keep the smallest "head size" in the photograph at a minimum of a quarter inch width when printed at 300 dpi -- so that is a total of 75 pixels in width. If I can get 75 pixels or more for each head I feel ok with my scanning resolution. With some of those old genealogy photos, one would be hard-pressed to get that scanning at 300 dpi, but usually you can get it at 600 thus keeping the photo file size down to a reasonable size.

Hopefully, this explanation will be helpful. Good luck to you.

Often dust or scratches will determine the answer to this question, but generally, a properly-preserved slide or negative will outlast the print made from it and will produce a noticeably better copy print than will a print. This is because when light is transmitted through an image, it carries many times more color and shade intensities than when light is reflected from an image. 

When copying or scanning photographs, look for an original negative or slide first. Remember too that photographs produced by professionals are usually copyrighted property (look for the photographer's logo), and are thus subject to copyright laws.

You make some good points. I am in agreement that our current CD technology will need to be updated within a generation. I don't think digital storage is the way to long-term permanence without adding lots of backups and periodic incremental updating to it as well. But because so much of the photo industry is going digital these days, I don't think we can safely assume that black and white film negative enlargers will be plentiful 100 years from now either.

I like the idea of doing both. I still shoot my originals with film, and I scan and do nearly all my processing digitally. I use archival storage of the negatives. I use multiple backups and storage locations for the digital images. I am trying to scan all my old prints and negatives just as fast as I can and give away the digital storage files to as many family members as will take my family photos, hoping that this will help in the preservation attempt.

If you are making your copy black and white negatives in 35mm format, you might give Kodak T-Max 100 film a try. I found it to be an incredible copy film that I didn't have to develop myself. You can control the contrast by shooting your high contrast images outside in the sunlight or inside with dual flash. The low contrast images come out great with tungsten lighting at longer exposure times.

Of course there are risks to any photo-conservation scheme. It is always prudent not to rely on any one method alone. But the real secret to the longevity of digital images lies in the fact that they can be copied with the copy containing the exact same electronic code as the original. Each successive generation of copies is exactly the same, making this photographic concept an archivist's dream! By putting time and resources into preserving high-quality digital images, with backup copies stored separately, you could watch your precious originals deteriorate with time and feel secure that the images will live on.

High resolution scanners can convert traditional color or black and white photographs into high quality digital images. CD (Compact disk) and its heir-apparent DVD (digital video disk) can provide robust storage media for these digital images. Some experts feel that properly stored and cared for compact disks could last up to 100 years. But be careful, not all CD writing schemes are created equal. In fact recent tests have shown that some CDs begin to fail in less than 10 years; the cause: plain old oxidation (rust or tarnish) which causes the “+“ signals in a “+ -“ CD groove to degrade to “-“.

Good question, I wish I knew the answer. I went to the Internet and found a glue named Henzo Archival Photo Glue distributed by Epica. This company is a leader in scrapbooking and this particular glue is claimed to be acid free and archival. One feature I like about the glue is that I get the impression from the description that like a sticky note you can peel it off and reattach it if you want.  Anyway, I am not sure how this company determined that it is of archival quality but the product does sound very promising. I saw no negative feedback about it. Sounds to me like you will ultimately know the answer to your guestion and I HOPE it is "YES it is archival!"

I have wondered about this problem myself. I have avoided the situation by removing those strips each time they come back to me that way. When the adhesive is fresh it comes right off without damage to the negative. But I have no experience trying to remove it after a period of time. Have you tried a 50/50 solution of ethanol and deionized water? If you find a good solution to this problem please let me know and I will pass it on to my readers.

I am not familiar with it by name, but generally the albums made during that era, though not archival in quality, are superior to the later ones when plastic was used. You mentioned the cover design but not the material. If it contains plastic or wood products it would probably be harmful to the photos. You could mostly isolate it from the pages by covering the cover with archival plastic. The paper itself is probably slightly acidic which can be determined for certain with a pH testing pen (sold by archival storage dealers).

Putting mylar sleeves over the pages would do the same thing as putting it over the cover -- it would tend to isolate each page and its acid from the neighboring ones. It would not remove the acid and may not slow down the degradation within, but would keep down additional problems from outside of that page.

If it were me, since it still has a slight musty smell, I wouldn't put my wedding originals in it, but nice copies instead.

For long-term photo storage, yes typical vinyl album covers are a serious problem. Cloth is much, much less of a problem, but be careful of the adhesive that holds the cloth in place. Many stores now carry a line of plastic albums that are of archival quality and often they are not much more expensive, I would use those.

If you are displaying old, one-of-a-kind photos this way, I wouldn't do it. The way we handle this problem is to digitize the photos that you want in the album, then use an inkjet printer to produce nice looking prints to put in the scrapbook. When these copies develop problems you can simply replace them with new inkjet prints.

Yes, use the "canned air" on negatives too. One little caution though on using "canned air". Sometimes the initial blast of air from the can (after it has been sitting for a few minutes) does contain liquid. This almost always evaporates away completely but I have noticed that on the negatives or slides, if they had dust on them, the liquid may evaporate leaving a visible ring. So for that reason, I direct the first short puff of air away from the photo.

No, I haven't heard of it but on first thought I am worried about the oil. I still would favor canned-air first followed by brushing. If dry rubbing is needed bread does have so many of the qualities looked for in cleaning: soft, absorbent, the right moisture content. Anything it won't remove could be dangerous to try removing.

My concern would be in what might be added to or left on the photo from the bread. Oil could discolor the emulsion, and the gluten could attract insects. On the other hand, particles from an eraser could be just as harmful because of their high sulfur compounds. If you do choose to clean with bread, be sure to follow up with canned-air. Also remember to do cleaning away from your photo storage area.

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!

Unless you are well equipped and have special skills, I would recommend hiring a professional to help with this problem. There are two solutions they might use, but I can't tell you which might be better for your situation, and unfortunately both are quite risky. I have only tried the one I'll mention first, and it was quite tedious and only marginally successful. I used a sharp utility knife to carefully cut into the back of the photo that was stuck to the front of the other. Before doing this, I made sure I had a good quality copy of the front of this back-stuck photo because its easy for the knife to slip all the way through the thin paper and mar it. I would never attempt to do it this way unless the two photos were stuck only in one small spot. After separating the two, it was relatively easy to daub the spot with a q-tip moistened in a solution (of 50% ethanol in deionized water) and let it soak until the back paper came off. The problem I had was that my results were marred by inadvertent slips of the knife resulting in scratch marks to both photos.

One might use a variation of the above method too if the photo with the stuck emulsion is an extremely valuable one and you can be content to preserve only your copy of the top photo. In this case you would actually cut away the top photo chunks that are not stuck which would allow for better penetration of the deionized water-ethanol solution.

The second solution would be preferred for most situations where large portions of the emulsion are stuck, but I have never done it this way. This would be to soak the two photos until they separate and hope that: 1) pressure does not cause tearing, and 2) when they separate, the stuck emulsion goes with the right photo, 3) there is no emulsion floating or buckling. I really don't like these risks, but maybe someone who has experience doing this could get good at it.

In most cases that I have encountered, the separation becomes a quest to minimize damage through repairing emulsions, touching up scratch marks, scanning the damaged photos then restoring them digitally. This is why I think that for most of these problems you would be best served by hiring a professional to help you.

Here is what I would recommend. Buy archival quality polyetheylene protective photo sheets (sleeves) to fit the photos, or maybe a little too large for the photos. Get protective sheets that are made of heavier plastic rather than the lightweight ones. Take a curling photo and begin to place it inside the sleeve, but only push it in part way so that the curl within the sleeve does not buckle over. Place this sleeve and partially loaded photo on an unused end of the kitchen table. Put a dinner plate about a foot away from the open end of this sleeve and on top of this plate place a damp dish towel. Leave it like this overnight. The next morning see if you can push the photo a little further within the sleeve and then replace the moisture in the damp dish towel. Check it again evening and morning in the same way allowing time, moisture from the room, the slight presure from the sleeve itself to do the work of straightening the photo. It may take a few days but soon you will be able to get the photo completely within the sleeve and the sleeve will eventually flatten the photo without any new cracks in the emulsion. When done, the moisture content within the sleeve and photo may be just a bit higher than what you want for long term storage. To bring this down to where you want it you can take the photo into a dry area of the house and place an archival card or board inside the sleeve (after the photo is uncurled) as a protective backing. If you prefer not to have a protective backing then leave it in the sleeve for just a couple of days and them remove it. Good luck.

I'm afraid I dont know the answer to that question, but I do plan to alert my readers as to this danger!

Here is how I would go about trying to solve this problem. I would first try to replicate this problem using photos from the same era that really have no meaning or value to me. So use the exact same kind of pen and get the ink to transfer in the same way. Now you have some old photos from the same era with the same problem that you can work with. I would next start trying to remove the ink with various solutions, cleaning with a lint-free cloth, then letting them fully dry between each experiment. If you have made enough test photos use just one solution per photo, or pre-cut the photos into pieces so that you can try each solution. Some ideas for cleaning solutions are as follows -- they are listed here in the order that I would try out with the most harmful or dangerous solutions listed at the end: warm water, warm water with a drop of dish detergent added, ethyl alcohol mixed 1 to 1 with water, straight ethyl alcohol, baby wipes (followed by a water rinse), gasoline or cleaning fluid or paint remover followed by an ethyl alcohol rinse to remove residue prior to drying.

I sure hope this helps you find a solution to this problem.

First it is wise to scan the collection, and tintypes often scan in very well. You might even scan them for a final output of 4 times the size of the originals and still get good looking prints.

It might help to think of your tintypes as pieces of painted iron -- the problem is, your goal is not just to keep the metal from rusting, but to keep the original “paint” intact too. Remember that metal expands and contracts significantly with changes in temperature. Because the "paint" is different from the metal it would expand and contract differently, thus each time it goes through this routine it would tend to weaken the bond between them. So, especially with tintypes, watch out for temperature changes. Keep them in your, heated and air-conditioned living space.

A similar case could be made for changes in humidity, and watch out for moisture in any form -- this may be your #1 danger. Water inside will eventually find its way to the metal. The common leather binder may be inadequate protection in this area.

Remember too that nearly all smells can create problems. Leather has a slight smell on its own, which means chemicals harmful to the photos are slowly coming off. The problem is greatly compounded when you see the leather cracking and you put some saddle soap, or other compound on it, to soften it.

If you take the air away from your metal photo, then theoretically, you also take away oxidation (rusting). So how do you do that in a practical way? You might try shrouding the whole collection within sealed archival plastic bags. If you are really serious about this, rent a small tank of liquid nitrogen. Put a group of photos in the plastic with some silica gel for a few weeks to try and bring out any moisture from within the collection. Then pull out the silica gel and purge the air from the bag with nitrogen, then heat seal the bag. Place the bag in a baked enamel cabinet in a heated/air-conditioned room. When you want to view your photos, open the bag then re-purge and seal it when you are done.

Concerning rust that has already started, or metal that is even flaking – you’re dealing with a rather touchy area here! What you do could be more harmful than helpful! Scraping might help. Administering a drop or two of oxalic acid (sold as car radiator cleaner) will help de-rust the metal, but I sure wouldn't want to get it near the image -- and even if successful a complete water wash would be needed as a follow-up measure. A trick common in the metal industry might help in rare cases: when zinc metal (even on a corner) is "galvanized" to raw iron, the zinc will always rust first, thus inhibiting rust on the iron.

What about protective coatings? Here again, you are really dealing with a delicate situation. I would only use gelatin glue on the print surface. It will help physically hold flakes in place, but the trade-off is you will almost certainly get some local discoloration as a result. This glue might be helpful on the back of the metal as well. The printing industry uses varnish on book covers to help weatherproof them. I don't know that this would be a universal recommendation for tintypes – probably not. My general rule of thumb is, the less complex the chemistry of the matrix, the better.

You also might want to check with some oxidation experts in the automobile industry to see if they would have some recommendations.

Your situation sounds like my own from about 20 years ago. The first thing I would suggest is that you don't panic. The photos you just inherited didn’t get in their current disarray overnight and you won’t be able to organize them all at once either. I would bring them inside your living space and try to protect them from major physical damage by putting them in a drawer, box, anything to protect them.

Next remember that damage to your images is far more likely from people handling or moving them than from anything else. So the lack of attention they have received over the last few years may not be as damaging as your own sudden attention: opening and closing the box, shuffling through them, looking for one here or there, pulling them all out, then putting them all back, etc.

Next, as you get time, I would separate them into two piles, groups, boxes, or whatever – namely: those that are properly labeled as to names, dates, places and those that are not. Then, as you get together with family members, I would take out a few photos each time you meet with them and go over the names, dates, and places. In this way, you should eventually end up with just one group – all properly labeled.

Next, you are ready to start what I call the “cleaning and stabilizing” phase. This is where you pull away the most harmful or damaging things from your collection first, the rubber cement, the magnetic pages, the vinyl, etc. You even put the photos that have been affected by these things in separate temporary storage folders, you separate out all the newspaper clippings and these go somewhere by themselves.

The tin-types all need to be dusted with filtered air only (brushing will scratch them) and placed so that the surface is not able to rub against anything abrasive when you open and close the drawer or box they are in (when I don’t have archival plastic, I just use pieces of paper to separate the tin-types).

In this way you can start gradually bringing your collection up to an archival level. As you can do so, scan and digitize them a few at a time too. Gradually, you will transform them into a good collection that you can share with others who may one day be interested in them.

If its any consolation to you, when I first started with my collection I was the only one interested among my immediate family. But as the years go by, many have taken interest. I now have a teenaged daughter who puts in as many hours on the collection as I do. It’s fun to work together on it, some things she does better than I do so we complement each other. And think of it, I actually have a teenaged daughter who keeps the communication lines open with her dad!

Good luck! I think you are in for some rewarding experiences.

If you can stand the smell, pull out the photos and place them individually on sheets of acid-free paper in a dry, well ventilated room where the sunlight can shine on them directly for several hours a day. Turn them over from time to time and let the sunlight shine on the backs too. If they are left long enough, this should dry them out and stop the mold from growing. Next, take them outside one by one and brush them off, you may need to use canned air first, be careful not to bend them or scratch the delicate emulsions. Put them back in the sunlight for a few more days on fresh, new acid-free paper. By now, much of the smell should be gone. Examine them carefully under low magnification and look for two things: first, would additional brushing or even scraping help them or not -- especially the back sides. If so do it. Secondly, would the emulsions hold up to washing or ethanol cleaning? Details of this process may be found in my other web article at www.geocities.com/rgmcknight/photopre.htm under the heading: Cleaning and Stabilizing Your Photographs. When you finally have your photos the way you want them, give them a new acid free storage box, or maybe even a new archival album (plastic sleeves should remove most of the remaining smell) and bring them into your dry heated and air conditioned living space to enjoy for many years to come.

First off, there isn't such a thing as risk-free but the closest thing to that seems to be for you to do as much of the process as possible on your own. In this way you are taking the risks. Yes there is a learning curve, but we tend to be more careful with our own valuables.

Secondly, I would carefully research the copyrights to be sure that you have a legal right to profit from these photos.

I know of two good ways to make the copies and maybe a combination of both: with film and with scanning.

For the film route you will need a 35mm camera with a pretty good quality lense but not necessarily too fast a lens (I use an old f2 because it gives flat close-ups). The camera should be able to do manual exposures. I would highly recommend that you use Kodak TMax-100 black and white film exposed and developed as normal. Unless you have a nice dual-flash copy-stand I would do this outside so that you can keep the exposure times to a minimum (preferably 1/4 second or less). The copying can be done in full sunlight provided that you have a little local shade right over the pictures. Watch out for vibrations, light gradients, and reflections. To avoid vibrations, I always use a tripod, a remote trigger, and I stop down the mirror on my S.L.R. To avoid light gradients I move out away from buildings and place the photo in a horizontal position with the camera above it pointing downward. Reflections can sometimes be very tricky. About the only way to successfully shoot through glass, for example, is to do it just a few minutes before dark at night or just after it begins to get light in the morning. If your camera lens can't get close enough, buy some close-up lens attachments (diopters) that fit on like a lens filter.

The scanning route may be the easier way to go. Nearly everyone seems to have a flatbed scanner these days and it seems like one of the best kept secrets around is that even the very cheap ones are capable of producing high quality photo scans -- all you need is 300 dpi (dots per inch). The typical problems you may run into is with the scanner software. The software needs to be capable of setting for a photograph not just a high contrast document. Secondly, the software shouldn’t automatically make your resultant scan too sharp until you are finished touching it up and want to print it out on your inkjet printer. Good touchup software is very inexpensive these days, and most is of very high quality compared to what was available five years ago. Remember to print on glossy (or mat) special high-quality photo paper and you should get very pleasing results.

The combination way is to use film to copy and then scan the negatives. Film scanners are also much more common these days. Remember to scan at a high enough resolution to get 300 dpi on your desired final print size. So scanning 35mm film for an 8x10 print requires that you scan at 2400 dpi.

As you can imagine, there are several ways to approach this project and all of them are a bit of a challenge! One of the less risky ways would certainly take a lot of patience: Buy and or make an archival storage envelope or even a display frame for the photo. Take the envelope and the photo to a table that is out of the direct sunlight with no air blowing directly on it. Feed the leading edge of the photo scroll into the envelope but don't get in a hurry causing cracks. Cover the scroll with a cheese cloth or towel that is clean, and dry (not the kind that sheds). Every few days you should be able to push more of the photo into the envelope.  Change the cloth regularly with a fresh one. I don't know how long it will take but you should eventually get the entire scroll into the envelope.

This problem is partly why dry mounting photos is not recommended for archivists even if the dry mount doesn't cause photo discoloring. Here is what I would do in this case: I hope these '50s photos were made on the thicker photo paper and not with the really thin stuff. Cut away the top mats and as much of the bottom mounts as practical. Air-clean the surface of the photo and turn it face-down on a new sheet of acid-free, white paper laid on a table or desktop. Use a stainless steel spatula (or maybe even a butter knife from the kitchen) and try to work a corner of the mount loose. Don't lift the photo. If more cutting or scraping is needed, be sure and cut only into the backing and not into the photo. Its a slow process, but it can be done without damaging your photo. When you are finished liberating the photos, before putting them into archival storage be sure and follow the instructions from my Photo Preservation article under "Cleaning and Stabilizing Your Photographs."

I don't like the sound of this -- I think you may need to remove the photos from the album to keep them from deteriorating. The cover is probably vinyl which is not archival and the fumes are harmful to your photos. One might be able to encapsulate it in an archival plastic book cover, but some fumes from the vinyl would probably still reach your photos.

You say it looks almost mildewy, but does it smell mildewy? Hopefully not! If it does, then there is a serious problem with where you are storing the album. Moisture and humidity are extremely hard on photographs.
Be carefull when you move your photos to archival storage that you don't do more harm than good. Make a plan first and think out what you are going to do. Be sure to check out my article on how to do this.

I am having a hard time picturing exactly what kind of albumn you have, but since it is ruining your photos, they need to be removed from it.  You may want to scan them first.  You may want to start with a page containing a photo of lesser importance. In removing them, try not to bend the photos as they are likely somewhat brittle. Try to get a stainless pancake turner or spatula under the photos and work them free without bending them. When you have liberated them, then read my information about "Cleaning and Stabilizing Your Photographs" at www.photoheritage.net/preserving.php.

I am presuming that this photo makes an 8" long roll and the photo is on the inside, but my advice would be similar even if it isn't.  You will need a couple of light plastic clamps (like potato chip bag clamps), a plastic cloths hanger, and a bathroom without too much traffic that is mostly dark and dust-free.

Carefully reinforce the brittle leading edge of this photo both front and back with a piece of folded acid-free cardstock about 2 inches wide and apply a potato chip clamp to it. Suspend the photo from the ceiling with an anchor attached to the hole in the handle of the clamp. This should be in the opposite end of the bathroom from the shower. Now lay the plastic cloths hanger, hook down, inside the scroll of the photo.

At this point, I am assuming that the weight of the hanger does not cause the photo to completely unravel.  Over a period of days, apply a little more weight to the hook of the hanger, but don't get in an hurry, easy does it.  The bathroom shouldn't get too wet (use the fan when showering) but it should get modest use.

When the photo has unravelled enough that the hanger falls to the ground, its probably time to apply a potato chip hanger to the inside edge of the scrolled photo (support with a 2 inch wide piece of acid-free cardstock as before).  Over time you may want to add a little weight to the bottom of this clamp.  Eventually you should have a fully unravelled and uncracked photo, but before pulling it down, get your new frame and mounting board ready.  You may need to very gradually put it in there too by laying the frame face down on the kitchen table, then the photo on that, then the backing board on that and let time pull it all down enough to secure it.

I'm glad to hear that you are moving ahead on this project very slowly, I like your approach.  I do have a couple of thoughts.  For those photos that are really special to you, if you have the luxury of doing the scanning twice this is how I would do it:
1) Do an air and brush clean (dry).
2) Do an initial scan.
3) Remove the photo from the backing.
4) Carefully Clean photos with a liquid cleaner (50-50 ehtanol-water) as described below.
5) Do the final scan.
6) Do proper storage of originals.
7) Compare images from the two scans to determine best starting point for the final electronic image storage file. Some will be better from the first scan and some from the second.
8) Either you or your professional use the cloning tool to remove the last specs of dust from the electronic images.

As you clean with a q-tip or absorbant pad be very careful to notice when the cleaning might actually be lifting some the detail from the photo.  Also note that on some of the fingerprints, removing the oil from the fingerprint will leave a significantly more visible blemish than it was previously.  Thus the second scan could be inferior to the first in quality.

For me the most useful tool in the house was a stainless steel pancake turner blade (spatula). For some of the stubborn ones I had to cut away the backing piece by piece with a knife.

It is possible that you would want to leave the backings on there.  They sell marking pens that you can use to tell how acid a piece of paper is. If the backing isn't too acid and is tightly bound to the photo and the photo shows no signs of fading and the board is still in excellent condition, then you may opt to leave it on there at least for another generation.

Good, keep reading, I've got a lot on the website that will help you.

When it comes to enlargements and supersized enlargements, 35mm is currently far superior to digital. This is because there is hardly any comparison between pixel density and silver grain density -- silver wins by 100 to 1 or more. But this is changing and I expect to see some strong competitors within 10 years as nanotechnology really takes over the electronic camera market.

Yes I believe the future belongs to electronic imaging and yes there are so many advantages but 35 mm negatives and slides are also a great storage media for today and for the next generation or so.

CDs and DVDs are becoming somewhat of a disappointment to photoarchivists. You might get 10 years storage from them.  But the key is to make several copies and make new copies every few years. My electonic storage media of choice in 2008 is giant external hard drives. I buy the ones where the gigs per dollar of cost are at a maximum. Last year this was 750 gigabytes -- I don't know what it is today. They may also only last 10 years but no one expects them to last much longer so you rotate them.

For film cameras I like: Nikon, Pentax, Canon, Minolta, Olympus. I understand that these same camera makers do well in digital too. I have heard good things about Nikon but I have not shopped for one.

Keep reading before you jump in.

As to "totally digital" some may be ready for that but many would not be. An important question to ask yourself concerns the print you can make from the digital image. If you should happen to lose your digital files and all you have left is a print you made from it, would you be satisfied with that or would you feel a real loss? If you would be satisfied then how many of the images that are important to you do you print? Since the print is your backup, how long will that print last?

Additional "totally digital" considerations include: do you use the banker's philosophy that a digital file is not safe unless it exists on at least 3 types of media and in at least 2 separate locations?  Do you have a philosophy among family or close friends of sharing all your important digital photos with them and they with you and do you each download copies to store locally?

What about display quality for that rare spectacular image that comes along once every year or so -- or are you willing to forgo that? For our son's recent wedding, in addition to the official traditional photographer, we preserved it with several hundred digital snapshots, a few digital movie clips, and just a couple rolls of 35 mm film. This is a significant change from our daughter's wedding 7 years earlier where we shot about 15 or 20 rolls of 35 mm film!

As for preserving and viewing your old photo prints, this is a matter of personal preference because there are so many archival quality products now available. Because we have young grandchildren coming up that will want to turn these album pages, my personal preference is archival polypropylene or polyethethylene pages for a 3 ring binder (I buy archvial binders too). I load the pages with photos in the sleeves back to back unless there is something important on the back I want visible. I leave a sleeve blank here and there for captions printed from computer on acid-free paper. Additionally each photo has a unique identifiying number that refers back to a computerized master list with full caption.

I also like to have copies of my digital photos appear in "family history book" form. The quality of these printed images may not be as good but the wide distribution of them helps to preserve the images, especially when the book is also printed in electronic pdf format.

I hope these ideas are helpful.

Sorry to hear that the old "double-exposure" problem got you too! And it usually hits at just the wrong time. Unfortunately there usually isn't much you can do to make the images look good, but once in a while you can get lucky.

The lucky situation is typically when the photo you really want to save is a bright, highly exposed shot and it happened to be double exposed against a dark or underexposed scene.

Then there is the situation where the less important shot contains lots of blank sky or even a lake with little else. In this case the photo exposed with it will look very overexposed, but you can still see most of the detail.

In either event, I think I would try to use scanning and computer photo editing to recover the images. It seems like in this computer age, someone would invent a computer program that could mathematically separate the two images and restore them. There may now be such software, but I am unaware of it. But hang onto your film, if it isn't here yet it could be just around the corner!

In some ways learning about photographic preservation can be a bit frustrating. It can also actually be harmful rather than helpful to your photographs. After a little study a person commonly becomes horrified at all the things they have been doing wrong. Sometimes, they will over-react and quickly go do something harmful, such as handle all their negatives to look for damage!

Remember, it's almost never too late to begin preserving your old photos. Please decide right now that you won't do anything to your photographs until you have a preservation plan. If you don't understand, ask before you experiment.

Unless your photographs were just in a flood or fire, you have a few weeks and months to carefully produce your own personally-tailored plan for photographic preservation. This plan should be personal enough to adapt to your own needs, including time and budget limitations. If you get frustrated at how slowly your plan progresses, keep in mind that you did not build up your photographic treasures all at once, and you may not be able to take all the preservation steps at once either.

Yes, there is. Put it in an archival quality frame and then watch out for Ultra-violet radiation over time. But before doing so, I would have the photo scanned at a resolution of at least 300 pixels per inch and have the scan touched up and a print made from it. Be sure you tell the professional who does this that you are paying for both the copy print and the final touched-up high resolution computer image file, because this file becomes your new negative. This file can be copied and stored in many places with each copy of equal quality with the original. So you then compare the copy print with your original and ask yourself if the quality of the copy print is good enough to use as a stand-in for the original. My guess is that it probably will be, thus you can keep the original in storage, pulling it out for viewing just on special occasions. When ultraviolet radiation washes out the stand-in, you have another copy made to replace it with.

There are some new products out that claim to protect against ultraviolet, but I don't know how well they work or how harmless they may be to photographs.

Yes, and to understand why this is so, we must look briefly at the chemistry of photography.

The beautiful old black and white print of your grandparents on their wedding day is really a complex blend of tiny silver particles embedded in the gelatin surface of photographic paper. Chemicals left over from developing the print, dyes, ink, mounting papers, and adhesives round out the conglomeration. Each of these items affects the life of the print in some way.

The gelatin is vulnerable to heat, light, cracking, scratching, fingerprints, bug infestation, mold, mildew, humidity, water damage, etc. The same chemicals which made the print possible are usually left in small amounts in the paper. These will often work against the print over time, causing it to fade or spot.

Many mounting boards and even some photographic papers are acidic. The residual acid left in the paper will break down the paper and eventually ruin the photograph.

Dyes and inks usually fade with time. Some contain chemicals that will accelerate photographic deterioration. All or nearly all common glues and adhesives cause long term damage to photographs (perhaps without even touching the print itself)--some commonly used ones can visibly damage a photograph within five or ten years!

Yes, I don't know of any danger to your photos in combining color or b&w photos in this way. Just be sure that the photo frame contains no acidic parts that would accelerate photo deterioration.
Thanks for the inquiry,

Yes there are products on the market that can be put over the window, or change the window glass itself to restrict UV light from the window. Whatever you can do in that area would help greatly slow down the deterioration. However, this will not eliminate the problem entirely.

I would advise that you also scan the entire collection and each new photo that comes into it. Scanning is not costly, just time consuming. Surely some of the sorority members have scanners and could help with the project. Someone may also have photoshop software that restores somewhat faded photos very quickly and efficiently. Then you can catalog the collection and when any photo gets faded to a noticeable level you can replace it with a digital copy and perpetually maintain the collection.

I store mine in individual archival plastic sleeves. I prefer plastic because it is softer than glass or other archival storage and will not scratch them. Then I store the plastic sleeves in the dark within baked enamel metal file cabinets.

I don't know how to display them in the light without causing deterioration. I do know that there are some good UV light filters on the market and that UV is said to be the main problem, but I'm not sure if enough research has been done to determine for sure if any of these solve the complete light problem with photos. I personally prefer to make high quality copies from the original tin types and store the originals in the dark.

Yes, Karen, you will want to get an archival box, archival plastic, and may not want to use tape at all.
Below I am enclosing a short list of companies that supply archival photographic storage products.

•       Archivart, www.archivart.com
•       Archival Methods, www.archivalmethods.com
•       Conservation By Design Limited, http://conservation-by-design.co.uk
•       Conservation Resources International, LLC., www.conservationresources.com
•       Gaylord Bros, Inc., www.gaylord.com
•       Get Smart Products, www.pfile.com
•       Hollinger Corporation, www.hollingercorp.com
•       Light Impressions Corp., www.lightimpressionsdirect.com
•       Print File, Inc., www.printfile.com
•       University Products, www.universityproducts.com
•       Vue-All, www.vue-all.com

1) This would be the question I wish could be put to the manufacturer. My information on this could be out of date, but if so, I think I would have heard about it. In other words, I know for a fact that magnetic pages used to be unsafe. Virtually everyone who used them would have known after 5 or 10 years because the photo had a dark brown or black striped pattern on them matching the pattern of the adhesive. Has their manufacturer reformulated them so that they are less dangerous? -- I don't know. I wish they would do something about this problem if they have not already done so.

Because the stains match the adhesive pattern, I have concluded that the adhesive is the problem. To me the dark stain looks similar to what is observed when rubber cement is used. In the case of rubber cement, I know that the problem is a multiple one. In addition to its attack on the photo paper itself, the sulfur complexes are known to react with the silver halide layer in the photo.

2) The way I have removed the photos is to first see if they will peal away without damaging the photo. If they are really stuck, I have had to cut away the backing (magnetic page) with a knife. One might also find that a stainless steel spatula would come in handy here.

3) To me this is the most challenging of the questions -- I am tempted to just say I don't know. I have never dared use a liquid of any kind on the backs of the photos because I am afraid that thinning the adhesive will spread it fully through the photo and greatly accelerate its degradation. If one was lucky enough to have the photo on a mounting board, then its easy, just throw away the mount. But for most of the photos I have worked with I usually just scrape away any excess adhesive I can with a knife and place the photos in their own separate archival plastic sleeves and store them away from my archival collection. Naturally, they are scanned (digitized) prior to beginning to remove them from the magnetic pages.

Yes, this is really is a difficult problem to resolve. If you keep them as they are, then there is a high probability that in a few years, striped lines will begin to appear on your photos as the adhesive bleeds through from the backs to the front. It is possible that the company who makes these magnetic pages could have reformulated their adhesive to prevent or retard this action -- I don't know. I do know that with some photo papers this happens more rapidly than with others. Additionally, the entire photo will get more brittle and the image will first discolor and then begin to fade.

On the other hand, if you remove the photos, its a great deal of work, you are subjecting them to potential curling, even creasing and cracking, and you still have the problem of not being able to fully clean all the adhesive away from the backs of the photos. If you try to clean with water or denatured alcohol you run the risk of spreading the adhesive, (which was pretty much confined to the back) all through the photo greatly accelerating the damage.

If I was in your situation, this is probably what I would do. I would leave them on the magnetic pages for now, maybe even indefinitely. I would use my old 35 mm camera and Kodak Royal Gold 100 film (Kodak T-Max 100 for black and white), and make the best copy negatives that I could for the prints that have no negative. I would store these as backups.

Next I would color scan my entire collection using a scanner that could give me high quality, 300 dpi scans. I would have these scans stored on at least 2 CDs per photo (stored in different locations). Every 5 years or so I would make new copy CDs, not to replace the old but in addition to the old.

I would take 3 or 4 of my most important photos in the collection and have their scans finished with photo enhancement software by someone who really knows how to do this. Then I would print them out as high quality inkjet prints and I would compare these to the original prints (in the magnetic pages).

At this point a decision would have to be made. How much loss in quality is there really from the originals and can I live with these as replacements? If I'm okay with the replacements, I would leave the originals alone. Otherwise I could try to retard or slow down their deterioration but it is a lot of work with little promise (unless the photos have only been in the magnetic pages for a short time and are not completely amalgamated to the back).

To remove the photos from the backing (if they have been on there long enough to be stuck) you will need something like a thin stainless steel spatula. Don't get in a hurry. You may even have to cut away some of the backing. Don't let them curl up too much as you go along. After completely dislodging a photo, I would lay it flat on its face and see if some of the adhesive that was on the back can be scraped off without spreading it out. That is all I would do in the way of adhesive removal -- I would not get the photo wet. Then I would transfer the photo to its own archival plastic photo sleeve and would probably use a piece of "rag board" as a backing or support for it in the sleeve.

If you decide that the digital replacement photo is good enough for you, then you really ought to seriously consider getting hooked on digital photography as a hobby. You could buy the photo enhancement software and have fun learning how to use it while you are restoring all your albums of photos. It is very time-consuming but surprisingly inexpensive now especially if you already own your own computer. The software and the inkjet printer are the two most expensive items.

I hope this is helpful. Again, I am sorry you have this problem. I wish more people knew about this problem before they put their photos into albums.

Yes, the acid already in the pictures will contaminate the box. And more importantly it will contaminate the other pictures within the box. So if you have some photos that have not been as exposed as the average photo in the box, it will probably accelerate their deterioration -- but not nearly as much as keeping them in the magnetic-page album. So you could say that it is a major "incremental" improvement.

If this was my collection I would probably put the photos in archival polyethylene (or polypropylene) album sleeves and then either put them in the box or in an archival binder. In this way, each photo (or pair of photos if you go back-to-back) is at least partially isolated from the chemical problems of its neighbors. You can actually completely seal them from their neighbors with a sealing iron, but that may be going too far. In any case, remember to always store these photos in a separate location from your photos that were never in the magnetic covers.

These archival plastic sheets are not terribly expensive especially if you buy them in bulk. But if even this is too much expense right now, then just get them out of the magnetic pages now and put them in anything -- even an old shoe-box is far superior to where they currently are. In this case, I would separate them with sheets of acid-free paper so that no photo back comes in contact with the front of another -- you'll see why after you start -- they're sticky!

My personal preferance is the heavy duty plastic pages, one photo per sleeve. Then if they have become brittle enough to require a backing board, you can slip a piece of board into the sleeve behind them.

Several years ago when I last explored this topic, the term "magnetic pages" referred to a narrow range of products where photos were held in place, not by any magnetic force, but by an adhesive applied in narrow bands on a white card, with the whole card (front and back) covered with a thin piece of plastic bent around the card as a cover. The plastic cover looked to be Mylar and could very well have been archival. The card could also have been acid-free. The problem was the adhesive, it caused severe and relatively rapid damage to photographs, from contact and probably also from fumes. It is this type of product that many photo archivists have warned the public against. There is no question that the adhesive was extremely harmful to photographs, I have personally seen the effects.

In recent years, I certainly hope that the manufacturers of such products have reformulated their adhesives and come out with better products, I don't know. I personally am suspicious of all adhesives used with photographs and my suspicion may also have lead me to a personal bias against them.

Yes, they can damage other photos nearbye.  That is why I recommend that if practical they be rewashed and air-dried first, and then each put inside their own archival plastic sleeve.

One idea would be to scan your magnetic pages on a scanner -- the whole thing just as it is.  This would preserve your layout and the pages as you put them in, like you would a big scrapbook page. This will create huge files at 300 pixels per inch but in future years that file size may not seem too overwhelming. You might want to compromise the quality slightly by scanning at 150 or 200 pixels per inch and cut the file size dramatically. Keep these original raw scans then on a copy try your hand at doing photo-touchup.  I think you will like the results!

This is an interesting challenge. I would hope you take the opportunity to scan the whole collection while you have them available, as a backup precaution.

Next, since you mentioned archival pockets, this tells me that preservation is of greater importance to this collection than is presentation or the ability to view them in some specific sequence.

Probably the easiest solution to this problem would be to purchase an archival 3 ring binder and several different varieties of archival polyetheylene sleeves to go in it. For mine, I buy sheets of 2"x2" sleeves all the way up to 8"x10". I try to put like photos together but I end up leavings some of the pockets empty. I often put a photo in an over sized sleeve. This method doesn't look as pleasing to the eye as with the magnetic pages but it is a good compromise in presentation without compromising preservation.

The chemistry and physics of silver with black and white images has been perfected to such a level as to make this media potentially good for 150 years of preservation. If you are really intent on maximizing the life of your black and white negatives, you may need to be selective about who does the developing or do the final archival rinse yourself. Such a rinse can sometimes even be done years later, but you must be very careful in doing it to avoid introducing further abrasion from dust or washing away partially detached silver/gelatin.

Yes, but please remember to follow these instructions on a less important strip on negatives first. I am concerned that in addition to moisture damage on the glossy side, you may have some mildew that has crept over to the emulsion side, maybe only on the edges. If you have mildew you will know it right away because in rinsing the negative strip, part of the emulsion will vanish with the rinse. If you have no mildew, then you should be able to rinse the negative strips with filtered, low mineral water adding Kodak photo-flo solution as directed for original film development, and hang the strips out to dry in a dust-free place.

To put your negatives through a less rigorous, less exposed treatment you may prefer to do the following: use a solution of 50% ethanol/water and a soft,lint-free wiper. Wipe the glossy side of the negative only. This is a bit tricky, but you may be able to clean off just the damaged negatives. This method will probably leave a line or watermark at the point you stop wiping, but with a little practice you should be able to get that line over the space between two negative images.

Store your negatives in a less moist environment with desicant.

Yes, the photographic dyes used in color negatives are usually the weakest in the photo conservation chain. Since photographs are really a blend of many different parts, the life of the whole is only as good as the life of its weakest part. All the other parts of the negative might endure easily for a hundred years.

One way to think of photographic preservation is to think of every picture as an "aging organism" with so many years of life bundled into it. This aging process can be greatly accelerated or reduced depending on what we do about it. Photographic aging is often a very slow process, and even at the "half-life," most pictures still look quite pleasing and show few outward signs of deterioration.

For the kind of collection you describe I nearly always recommend that you try to do it all yourself. Nobody can care for your negatives like you can. Yes there is a learning curve, but incentive makes a fast learner.

Remember that for old black and white negatives the biggest enemy is scratching. This generally comes from normal room dust or else from rubbing against other negatives. Protect them first from all dust and from any situation that would create abrasion. Clear archival plastic negative storage can actually attract dust, but overall it still seems to work best for me. After the initial prints and reprints have been made from a roll of film, I transfer them to clear archival plastic. I like this method because I can view the negatives through the plastic to pick out the one I want and in some cases I can even work with it right in the sleeve without removing it. No matter how you choose to store the negatives, remember that they will need some kind of outer archival wrapper where the dust can collect on the outside but everything inside is safe. You must also remember not to store the negatives one against the other or against anything else that will cause abrasion. They also need a controlled moisture content to protect them from things like mildew.

As far as the scanning goes, I would recommend that you invest in a negative (or transparency) scanner and do it yourself. They are getting rather inexpensive now-days, there are several on the market in the $100 price range.You should be able to find one that accommodates some kind of a carrier for your odd sized negatives.If you can't find one scanner that does it all then buy one for the 35 mm and smaller size and use a flatbed scanner for the larger negatives. Some flatbed scanners have transparency settings. Even many of those that do not can still be used by scanning the transparency with a sheet of white paper placed behind it. What you end up with is the scanned reverse image. You then find some software that will reverse the negative to a positive image.

Enjoy your collection and take good care of it. It should be around for many generations to come.

There is risk every time you even look at your slides. Like viewing them, the nature of the risk in duplicating them is mostly also limited to handling and equipment risks. It is the human element of being careful versus careless that is mostly involved with copying. So trust is the major issue here. You always want your photos handled under the direction of someone knowledgeable, careful, and with the right equipment. I know how you feel about your slides, I have some like that too. In fact, for me it was best to buy a film scanner (they have really come down in price lately) and digitize them myself rather than send them out for duplication. Now my originals never have to leave my personal custody. Many people may not have the time, and means to do what I have done, so for them, I would recommend that they focus seriously on the "trust" issue.

Most of my contacts are too old to be helpful to you, but I have a few suggestions. First, look in the local yellow pages under photography and try to determine the largest photo equipment retail suppliers in the L.A. area. This would be where the professionals and serious photographers buy equipment from. See if the professionals also use them as their photo finisher or who they send their photo finishing business to. Second, see if there are any large companies using Kodak photo finishing or who some of the largest photo finishers are. So what you are looking for is a large, high profile, company to take your film to who also uses a large, high profile lab to do their finishing. Third, talk to a few of these places on the telephone and ask them if they do "chain of custody" work with old 35 mm negatives, or if not who would they recomend? By chain of custody, I mean that when you take the roll of film in to them, you will have created a chain of
 custody, a sheet of paper with "OLD FILM" printed in larage bold letters on the top, and showing the printed name, signature, and date/time of every person who handled that roll of film from the time it left your hands to the time it was returned to you. When you find someone who will do your work for you, you hand carry it into their place of business in a large bag that can be sealed, even a large ziplock bag would do, with your chain of custody attached to the bag. After satisfying yourself that you are delivering it to the right person you sign off on your chain of custody and watch while they sign off.

I hope this is helpful.

I wish I could be more helpful to you on this subject. I am a chemist but not experienced with thermoplastics. I would think that the key is in the chemical composition of the thermoplastics and the papers used. There have been so many changes in these chemistries over the years that I think aging could be determined by chemical analysis. Today there are forms of chemical analysis that are called "nondestructive," meaning that the method doesn't require the need to remove and consume a piece to analyze it. You might want to talk to some analytical laboratories or art conservators about this.

No it shouldn't. In fact it is a good idea because of all the acid in the newspaper clippings they will deteriorate rapidly and may cause the entire scrapbook to do the same. Hopefully the copy will last longer. I know that a black and white xerox copy made on acid-free paper and stored properly will outlive you.

Sounds like you have researched this much more recently than I have. I know that the Kodak line has an excellent reputation. I really don't know what would be the next best for replacement. I know that I have had trouble with some of those that have a blue hue to them and some that have the green. I try to stay away from CD-RW. My personal choice has been generic CD-R disks that are silver to silver. I always make them in duplicate, and store one copy in a vault away from home. I re-copy my CDs every five years even if they don't seem to need it, making a new pair and keeping the old pair too.

In ideal storage conditions, negatives and slides would typically last longer than prints because they are less chemically complex. They also can produce a copy having a broader tone range. But these advantages could quickly evaporate if dust or scratches become an issue. Negatives have a silver-impregnated gelatin layer, and the modern ones use a thin, long-life plastic backing that does not easily retain chemical impurities. Partly because of the gelatin, negatives are still subject to heat, light, cracking, scratching, fingerprints, bug infestation, mold, mildew, humidity, water damage, as well as the chemical and physical problems introduced with storage. Even so, this is a shorter list of problems than for prints.

I would use canned air first to clean off any abrasive dust, then scan them. Scanning will not hurt them but could make it possible to preserve them for a much longer period of time.

I don't think you are too far off track with what you are doing so far -- not to worry! Yes your scans will look rough at first, especially to the descriminating eye of a photographer.  But before you take your scanner back, did you scan at either 300 dpi or higher in grayscale mode or 24 bit or higher color? Does your scanner/computer combination leave your scan untouched raw (as is)?  Hopefully the answers so far are yes. Next, I really think you are mistaken about Adobe Photoshop -- I'm confident they make a version for the Mac. Call Adobe and ask them which version would be the best for your operating system. If it doesn't have all their latest features, maybe they will deal with you on a later upgrade. You really won't need the latest version to do what you do, but you may want to take a tutorial class to get you going on it.  You will want to learn to use the cloning tool for dust removal and how to control the contrast/color saturation
 (Levels). You will want to keep all your raw scans so that when your Photoshop skills improve you can start fresh with some of the photos. It is possible that your scanner is not optimized to scan well in grayscale but does well in color (hopefully it has a photo versus document setting). You can convert color back to grayscale in photoshop but you might like the toning capability using color.  Anyway, you may need to scan one of your photos on a friends scanner for comparison to really see if the scanner isn't up to the task. My guess is that it will do the job and Photoshop will make for a professional looking result that will make you want to share with your family.

Yes, it is possible and is an excellent way to help preserve them. The way you do it is to scan them (or have them scanned) into digital photo files, then store them in several different digital formats so as not to lose them. At the moment, I prefer storing them on several different large hard drives because CDs and even DVDs are limited in space and they can go bad in a matter of just a few years.

You can get a quote from a local or nation-wide photo developer, but if you don't like their price, then you should look into buying a special scanner and doing it yourself. To do it yourself, there are a couple of things to keep in mind: the work is often labor intensive; and if you can't borrow a scanner with a special slide adapter you'll need to buy one. A top of the line Nikon Coolscan scanner still costs over $1000 but it subtracts dust from the image as it scans -- a very important feature for 35mm slides. You really don't need to invest that much money into a scanner, however. You can get some very good scanners with slide attachments for about $200 and to remove the dust you use a dust removal or cloning tool in your photosoftware (this is often the time-consuming step).

I hope you will enjoy your new digital colection, and remember, the more people you share these images with, the better your chances for them to survive for many years.

My guess is that this is a scanner problem or a scanner settings (software problem).  Did you set anything in the software to tell it that these are old photos?  The color yellow is usually the first color to leave a slide which leaves a bluer hue.  At anyrate, I think that the full-blown version of Photoshop would correct this deficiency, making them pleasing again even if not exactly like the originals.

It is true that saving too many pixels is less of a problem than saving too few, but 9600 ppi is nearly always overkill for photo print scanning. Saving that many pixels even from a 3 inch original would create a hugh file that would be rather unweildy to work with. When cutting it back to a more workable size by combining pixels, one risks losing definition to a greater degree than if it had been scanned at a lower resolution. When trying to print such a photo, most printers would not know what to do with all those pixels. Most photo software would have problems with it too.

Here is a suggestion for how to calculate the optimum scanning resolution for a given photograph (print). First decide what is the largest copy print you would ever want to make from that print. Second ask yourself do I need to lower this "largest size expectation" because the original print quality or size further limits what I can expect to get from a copy print? Keep in mind here that double is usually the maximum enlargement that will still please the eye (8x10 from a 4x5 original print). Third, multiply your largest print desired by 300 pixels per inch (for an 8x10, save 2400x3000 total pixels). Fouth, divide the total pixels by the size of the original print to get your scanning resolution (2400x3000 divided by 4x5 is 600 ppi).

Calculate the optimium scanning resolution for negatives or slides the same way as for prints. There are a few differences, however. First, with transparencies you are not limited much by what will please the eye so scan up to whatever resolution you want. Second, remember that most scanners require some kind of transparency adapter. Third, you will find that there is a practical limit on size based on how much dust is on the transparency and how big you want those particles to be when you are done with the scan.

Yes there is. You can print them out yourself with an inkjet printer onto photo paper. You might even be able to print them out at your local photo supply store from your digital file. If you still have problems with them, have a professional at the supply store or at a place like Kinkos look at the files and tell you what the problem is. They will probably be able to make the necessary corrections for you. Be sure and always continue to save your original scans as well as the corrected versions.

There is a chance that when scanning them you did not do it correctly and did not save enough total pixels to print a very large photo. But it is more likely that the scanning resolution is not compatible with the photo software of the online web site you tried.

Wow, yes I can see that this could be a real challenge for you. There are many ways to approach this and I am not sure mine is necessarily the best way but it is probably the most labor intensive way. I would begin with the one that is most in need of restoration. I would get the assistance of someone in the sorority with an old 35 mm camera and a tripod and someone else with a scanner and a computer with lots of available hard drive space on it. Next remove the photo composite from the wall and then remove the glass and frame from it. Take the photo outside in the shade and use the 35 mm camera to take several nice photos of the composite. Take the composite back inside to your work area and begin removing the individual photos one at a time or in small groups to clean and scan then replace them. If the composite backing material is falling apart, this may be a good opportunity to get an acid-free replacement and remount onto it instead. In this way you
 will go through the entire composite and reassemble it just like it was before or very nearly the same as before (you can use a print or a scan from the 35 mm photo to assist you in getting it right). Then identify the photos that you feel should be replaced this year and have someone with Photoshop touchup and print their scans out on a nice inkjet or other color printer and place them on the composite in place of the originals. Every 5 or 10 years you may have to replace more of them. In this way you move through the collection and restore and maintain it all.
Yes, I know this is a lot of work so you may want to do it over a period of years. I hope this is helpful.

My guess is that this problem has to do with pixel density.

Your scanner is probably doing what you bought it to do, namely giving you a maximum resolution scan. This is good, because some day you may want an enlargement of parts of these photos and if you didn't scan it at high resolution you won't be able to enlarge much. So make backup copies of these original scans.

To solve your problem what you need to do is find the place in your photo printing software where you can adjust pixel density, or photo size. I don't know what software came bundled with your scanner but I feel confident you can find the place to adjust this photo output size back to the original before it is printed. When you have successfully printed the photo the way you like it and you get ready to close the image file, save (save as) the file to a different file name from the original.

I would look for a decoupage adhesive from your local crafts store -- they come with instructions. You may end up adding a new layer to the whole thing in order to restore it. I am not familiar with how well these various decoupage adhesives do in getting along with each other. These art forms do have a certain life expectancy and are by no means of archival quality.

You may also be able to repair it using the gelatin glue I use for near-archive-quality repair work (see Recipe For Gelatin Glue on my other website at http://www.geocities.com/rgmcknight/photopre.htm ). In fact, one could make a very long lasting decoupage using this adhesive with a well rinsed photo on an archival board.

Wow, very nice project. I'm not sure I have a total answer but I think I can get you started in the right direction. I see the biggest problem for the puzzle pieces lasting 50 years as being the backing material. I'm not confident that either acrylic or baltic pine could be trusted not to cause fading of the photograph. Though I am a chemist, I am not familiar as to what plastics could be trusted. The item that comes to my mind for the backing would be 3 or more sheets of acid free bookbinding board glued together, turned to alternate grain pattern much like plywood. The producer of the board is a company called Davey, and distributers may be located by doing an Internet search under "Davey Bookbinding Board." To glue the boards together I would use an adhesive called Jade Acid Free PVA adhesive. One company that sells both the board and the adhesive is Talas (or Talasonline).

To print the photograph, I would have it done by one of your local photo print suppliers, you may ask them if they can give it an extra rinse.

To mount the photo to the board and to protect the surface of the photo from use, abrasion, etc. I would make up a large batch of the gelatin glue described in my Internet article, use it slightly warm and brush it on sort of in decoupage fashion, first under to mount the photo, and then on top.

Now the part of all this that will require a bit of experimentation on your part will be to get the surface to come out just right, not too glossy. So experiment first with some scrap photos -- apply the glue to the surface and let it dry completely. If it dries too shiny, then do another one only this time dry it next to a fan or even a hairblower (low heat). If you still can't get it right, try laying a piece of parchment paper or even polyetheylene on top while its still tacky, then pull it off when dry. With a little patience you should be able to get the surface just right. The laser cutting should do the rest.

This is a straightforward question, but is an extremely complex one to answer.  This kind of project is where the 21st century digital photographer has a great advantage. With the original media being digital one can easily create a pleasing collage, preserve the original exposures, print the collage with inkjet printers and mount it with any available materials knowing that new replacement prints can be made anytime.

If your old photos have not been digitized, I would strongly recommend it.  Then you would have the same flexibility described above and wouldn't have to worry about how long the collage might last. Otherwise you have several "headaches" to worry about.

Headache #1: are any of the originals you plan to use for this collage in the one-of-a-kind-originals category? If not you can properly preserve their counterparts and perhaps feel ok about these eventually fading. But if the answer is yes, then I would use stand-in copies instead.

Headache #2: can the hallway be at least partially shielded from ultraviolet light, especially direct sun rays? Hopefully, the answer to this question is yes and even if it is, you may want to invest in some fairly heavy glass protection for the front of your collage. I would recommend a glass front even in a dark hallway because of its inertness and ease of cleaning.

But a glass front creates headache #3: how do you keep the photos from sagging into the glass and eventually sticking to it?  One way is to use multiple smaller frames for the collage.  Another is to use thicker matt board, or matt board with several opennings.

Headache #4: most frames, matt board and backing material is not archival in quality. If you are using the digital scheme or using copies this may not matter, otherwise you need to purchase archival quality framing materials in order for the collage to last.

Headache #5: what if one of your originals for the collage is already brittle or beginning to disintegrate? Yes it will nearly always accelerate the decomposition of its neighboring photos expecially if it is touching them. You might be able to place it in its own archival plastic sleeve and still display it as part of the collage, but it would be better to use a stand-in copy.

Headache #6: how do you anchor the photos to each other or the single photo product to the matt board and backing? If using copies or replaceable digital images you can use mounting adhesive or tapes, but when using originals this is not typically a good idea. You can use pressure, but this will eventually press the photos against the glass in front. Sometimes thin archival backing sheets are the answer with the acid free mounting adhesive touching them rather than the photo.  Sometimes slots in the backing sheets will work.  This is probably the most challenging headache to overcome in a collage.

Yes you can create a pleasing result, and yes it can last for many years if done properly, but understand your risks and protect your originals.