Old photos are a joy to look through.

They bring back memories of friends, family and good times. However, storing and keeping track of your photos and slide collections can be demanding in terms of space, time and care.

That’s why digital archiving is a fantastic way to preserve your old photos, slides, and negatives without worrying about their care and maintenance.

I know what your thinking. “Why should I consider digitally archiving my photos and slides? My photos are perfectly safe in the shoebox on top of the shelf in the non-air conditioned garage next to the bag of bird seed that the raccoons tore into.”

Okay, that’s fine. The shoebox is one way to do it. But a hard drive or cloud-based storage is better.

Plus they’re raccoon free.

So, here are my top reasons why you should consider digitally archiving your photos.

 1. Retain precious moments forever

The biggest fear of having physical copies of old slides, negatives and photos is that they may be destroyed through natural or accidental causes. A spill of water or fire in the house can ruin your photos forever. Why risk this when you can preserve your precious photographic memories in the form of digital archives?

2. Share photos with loved ones even after decades

When you scan and archive your photos and slides, you are given the digital copies in the form of a CD or a portable hard drive or, these days, even a cloud-uploaded file. You can easily share these photos digitally with your loved ones around the world, anytime you want. You can send them via email or share them through cloud-based services like Dropbox or Google Drive.

3. Re-design your slides and photos in a creative, digital scrapbook

A photo scrapbook is a creative and beautiful way to celebrate your memories. Professional photo archiving gives you the opportunity to design your very own, personalized digital photo scrapbooks. And the best part? It’s fun and easy to do.

4. Photos can deteriorate over time

Old photos, slides, and negatives are extremely sensitive and will age over time. Storing photos in a hot or damp environment can speed up the aging process. Digitally archived photos can bypass this aging process giving you an easy way to retain the quality of your images.

5. Preserve historical photos for posterity

Many of us have photos and slides of famous places, people and other “snapshots of history.” A scanned and archived copy of these slides and photos can help you safeguard important parts of the past, which may not be available anywhere else.

6. Your photos will come out cleaner and better-looking

Old photos may be discolored or grainy. When you have your photos digitally archived, you can have these blemishes removed in no time. Additionally, scanning technology allows you to choose the resolution that gives your photos the greatest clarity.

7. You will always have a spare copy if the original/negative was lost or destroyed

In the event your physical photos, slides or negatives are lost or destroyed, you will have an emergency back up in your digital archive. Digitally archived photos can be stored forever in various formats, and they are also reproducible in a matter of minutes. This ensures you never lose your precious photographs.

8. Digital copies of photos and slides are easier to manage and store

Storage, handling, and care of negatives can be a time consuming and expensive affair. Digital archives, on the other hand, are very inexpensive to make and replicate. Additionally, the cost of storage devices is little-to-none, making photo archiving a budget-friendly solution.

Another advantage of digital archives – you can free-up space at home by locking away or destroying or giving away physical copies of old photos.

9. You can organize your memories better with digital archives

Once converted to a digital format it is much easier to organize your images. You can rename them easily. You can put similar photos in folders organized by date or subject matter. This will make it easier to access the images you want at any time.

You can share these highly organized photo folders with your loved ones too.

10. Digital archiving is surprisingly affordable

One of the biggest advantages of digitally archived photos is the cost. There was a time when scanning was a costly and slow process. Those days are long gone. Scanning slides, photos and negatives is surprisingly affordable. In addition scanning technology has vastly improved. Today you can get a better resolution scan at a much lower cost.

So there it is. Get out there and get those slides, photos and negatives scanned!

Expressions In Video is an Austin video production company specializing in high-resolution archival slide and photo scanning. We can digitally archive your cherished photos and help you preserve them for eternity. Contact us for more information.

We also specialize in video production, DVD duplication, corporate video production, commercial video production, TV commercial production. In addition, we offer home movies to DVD and video to DVD conversion.

Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash