Thursday, January 12, 2006

I've been scanning for hours

I decided to go through some of my mom's old picture albums, scan interesting photos, and throw away any pictures in which I didn't recognize the people, or in which the quality was so poor they were worthless.

I'm really sorry that Mother, in her later years, wrote on the pictures like she did.  And yet, I guess it makes them unique; it puts her signature on them.

If I were writing stories about the pictures, I'd have put this in my other journal, but I simply wanted to share some of my favorite old shots.

Going through albums this way, it's disappointing to find some of the pictures faded until they're hardly there at all.  And some get stuck in the album until you can't remove them without tearing them.  That's why I figured it'd be best to scan my favorites, so they don't deteriorate even more.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great pictures of your fanily and also the girls hands LOL. Some of my pictures were stuck in albums also. The acid in that album plastic from long ago will fade them out. You have your mothers handwriting to keep also. Helen

Anonymous said...

Great pics.  I have little by little been scanning all my pictures onto CDs.  At least on CD, they won't deteriorate!!  Scanning each picture does take a long time, but it's worth it.
Missie :)

Anonymous said...

Nice pictures!... (love the hands lol)  I've been doing old pics also and my mother DIDN'T write on them and so many cases i don't know who it is and I wish i did.

Anonymous said...

I need to scan some pictures and spread them out amongst the kids so there'll always be a copy around.

Anonymous said...

The ones that are 'stuck' in the albums will scan amazingly well I found. I have 3 albums that were the kind that had a sticky page and you stuck the picture (or pictures) to it, then spread the attatched plastic sheet back over them. They were the BOMB in their day, but if I had any idea of what would happen to the pics I never would have used them. Anyway, back to the pics that are stuck. If you get any glare you can usually pull them into a photo editor and fix it!

Next time I vistit my Mom and Grandmother I am going up with my scanner and laptop. They have BOXES of black and white photos. After scanning I want to put notes on them from my Mom and Grandmother. I would like to do this while I still have access to people who know the who/what/where of the pictures!!

Anonymous said...

what wonderful pictures. In a way, I think it was good your mom did write on the photos. I know my sister has been going through my mom's old albums with my mom listing who the pictures are of so that we will know who these are after she passes on.

Good idea to scan them. The kids' hands were precious :)

betty

Anonymous said...

Good ideas! Barbara

Anonymous said...

I should do the same, but it all boils down to time.  My free time is at a premium .
Sometimes looking through old pictures can bring back some wonderful memories.
Have fun !  'On Ya' - ma

Anonymous said...

Captured forever now and able to be shared with the furture families forever. Thanks for sharing!

Priceless....all that is gold does not glitter!

Anonymous said...

My mama had some of those old tin type pictures but she didn't know who they were. She offered them to each of us. We all told her to just keep them. She didn't, she buried them in the back yard. The house has been sold and we all wish we had them back. I like to look at old pictures even if I don't know them. Paula

Anonymous said...

Donna, this is a labor of Love and brings back tons of memories. I am about your age, a little older. I will be 65 in May and my Mother is 88. I recently have scanned most of her pictures and put them on CD's. These are easy to store and share and anymore about all the Wal-Marts have the ability to reprint pictures from a CD or a floppy. Don't be so quick to give up on the ones that have faded, there are programs by Coral and probably other companies as well that do a remarkable job restoreing PicturesI have Coral Photo House , Coral Draw 7 , Coral Draw 9 and coral photo album. I know you enjoy working on the computer and you will be amazed at the results with some of these programs. I now have 16,671 photos on my computer.    Richard

Anonymous said...

I wish my mother keep pictures. I have a few of my dadddy's from when he was a child.

Anonymous said...

Oldies but goodies from the past and now linked for the furure. This was wonderful!
Tess

Anonymous said...

True, they are faded a bit, Mosie, but at least you have them.  I would give anything to have pictures like those, but somehow, after my mom passed away, they got handed down to my sister, who put them in a box in the shed of her backyard, and they got destroyed by rain and dampness.  Made me so mad, I could have spit nails!  Now we will never have those priceless momentos of the past..  :(

Jackie

Anonymous said...

I recently had my Mom bring some of her old family pics to me so I could scan them.  Those are great pics, especially the first one!
Lori