Organizing Printed Photos: Tools of the Trade
Do you have boxes full of printed photos? Maybe you have old magnetic albums that are quickly turning your photos yellow? What about all those heritage photos you’ve inherited from your parents? Now is a great time to consider organizing the printed photos in your family’s collection to preserve them for generations to come, and to enjoy them again.
As with any job, having the proper tools is an important part of the process. But if you aren’t sure what tools and supplies would be useful to organize your print pictures, let me the guesswork out of that question for you. These are tools and supplies that I use in my personal photo organizing as well as with my client’s photos.
Print Photo Organizing & Sorting Tools
The first step of a print photo organizing project is to gather your photos together and sort them. These supplies will help you with those first steps
- Gloves – for handling photos and protecting them from the oils on your hands. I prefer nitrile over cotton for better handling.
- Photo cleaning cloth – for removing dust and fingerprints
- Dust mask – to protect you from the dust old photos tend to have, especially if you have allergies
- Canned air or an electric dust blower – for removing dust
- Sticky notes – for making notes and marking piles of photos when sorting
- A notebook, notepad, or note-taking app (like Evernote) – for keeping notes, to-do lists, and progress reports
- Stabilo pencils & pencil sharpener – for photo-safe writing on the back of photos
- Photo safe pens – for writing on the back of photos
- Document repair tape – for repairing torn photos
- Magnifying Glass – for reading small or hard-to-see handwriting
- Index cards or card stock – for separating your groups of photos when you sort. I like colored ones because they stand out more.
- Garbage bags – for throwing away all those duplicates and bad photos.
Photo Removal Tools
When you want to remove your photos from old (non-safe) albums, sometimes the photos are stuck to the page. These tools will help you release them from the pages.
- Waxed dental floss or Teflon floss – for lifting stuck photos
- Vinyl craft spatula – for gently lifting the edges of pictures
- Rubber cement eraser – for removing the residual adhesive from the back of photos
- Un-Du Adhesive Remover – for sticker, tape, and label removal
- Hairdryer – for gently loosening stuck pictures
For more detailed tips on dealing with those pesky “magnetic” albums, check out this post.
Photo Boxes & Storage
Once your photos are organized, you store them safely. High-quality photo boxes are a great choice, as are archival-quality file folders and sleeves. Look for products that are acid- and lignin-free archival quality, not just “photo safe”. Here are a few to consider.
- Archival Methods Boxes
- Kolo Boxes
- Archival File Folders
- Archival Photo Sleeves
- Slide Storage Box (one of my favorite storage systems)
Photo Albums
If you decide to put your photos back into albums, these are some excellent, quality choices.
- Kolo Albums
- Pioneer Albums
- Archival Methods Binders
- Creative Memories Albums
Scanners
Once you organize your printed photos, I strongly suggest you scan them. You can have someone like a photo organizer do it for you, or you can do it yourself. If you are a DIYer, these are scanners that I use and recommend.
- Epson Perfection V600 Scanner – flatbed scanner for prints, documents, negatives, and slides
- Epson FastFoto FF-680W – high-speed photo scanner
What tools do you like to use when working with your printed photos?
If you would like professional help with your print photo collection, we are here for you. The first step is an easy one. Let’s have a 15-minute consultation to talk about your collection and how we might be able to help.
About the Author
Andi Willis started Good Life Photo Solutions after searching for photos of her late father and realizing how easily a family’s memories can slip away. Now a Certified Professional Photo Organizer with more than 15 years of experience, she helps families across the country bring order to overwhelming photo chaos and preserve the stories that matter most. She works from Smithfield, Virginia.
If your own photos feel like too much to face alone, that is exactly the kind of puzzle we solve.
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As always, your post is chock full of great information and resources for handling photos. I have an opinion question for you. I recently digitized a lot of family photos. They are preserved on an external hard drive and also uploaded to a cloud-based system. Is there any reason to keep the physical photos now that they are digitized? Can you give me some pros and cons? I’d like to let them go, but am having trouble releasing them.
Same! Especially since I’m planning to move long-distance and about to spend $175 to put the physical photos in a photo archival box since about 1/3 are out of albums anyway (which I did to digitize them).
Piles of photos take up a lot space, especially digital ones. There can never be enough information about this topic, as it’s an ongoing issue. I enjoyed reading your post, it provided a lot of content with helpful tips and ideas.
Thanks, Shannon!
I just ordered a Stabilio pencil – game changer! I feel so much better about dating and labeling my photos. 🙂
It always helps to have the proper tools. Have fun!