Many of us have inherited photo albums and scrapbooks from relatives that were either created a long time ago or haven’t been made with acid-free and PVC-free materials. This could be a problem and if you want to keep your photos as beautiful as the day they were printed, you’ll need to take some special steps to prevent discoloring and spotting.

Acidity in Scrapbooking

One of the biggest problems with scrapbooking the old fashioned way is that photos are affected by acid. Unfortunately, most materials tend to be acidic and that’s why, when you look at your grandmother’s photo albums, the photos tend to look yellowed or even orangey. This is because the acid in regular paper tends to leach into photographs and discolor them. These days, there are acid-free scrapbooking papers which are a great idea if you plan to do any scrapbooking with photos and paper.

Acid damaged photo

Acid damaged photo

In this example, you can see that the photo has faded and discolored. Though it is a black and white picture, there is quite a bit of yellow coming through, which is due to this photo being stored in an acidic paper album for many years.

Other items can also include high acid levels that will damage your photos. Watch out when adding stickers, ribbons or any other scrapbooking items to a page. If you aren’t sure that the object is acid-free, then you’re safest using a PVC-free pocket or tiny bag that will keep the object separate from the photos. Keep in mind that these acids can travel, so even if a sticker isn’t touching a photo, it can still have a negative effect on it.

PVC Fumes

Acid isn’t the only thing that can attack your pictures. Remember those old plastic albums where you just slip the picture into a sleeve? If you have any of these albums around, whether from family members or ones that you put together yourself, I highly recommend removing the photos from these albums, even if they just sit in a shoebox for now. The PVC that was used to make these albums has disastrous effects on print photos.

Protecting Your Photos

The best way to protect your photos is to use a scrapbooking album that is made to keep them safe. A protective sleeve to go over each page is a very good idea since this not only prevents contamination from other pages, it also keeps sticky little fingers from staining your carefully arranged scrapbook pages!

Make sure you use acid-free pens or markers, both to write on the back of the photo and to do your journaling. Many people don’t realize that even a regular pen can end up gradually eating away at your photos over the years. Chances are you won’t see much in the way of effects immediately, but several decades from now, those photos won’t look so good.

Basic scrapbook page to print and embellish

Basic scrapbook page to print and embellish

Another option is to simply scan and print your photos onto paper, rather than using the originals. While I recommend this for old photo albums that you don’t want to take apart, due to writing and historical memorabilia, paper isn’t quite the same as a properly developed photo, so consider whether you want a truly original look for your scrapbooking first.

Check everything that you use in your scrapbooking to ensure that it is safe for photos. If you are buying supplies at a stationery store, you’ll find that it can take a lot of time to figure out which supplies are safe and which aren’t.

An easier method is to simply buy from a store that has already approved all their products for use in scrapbooking, such as Scrapbook Supercenter, an online store for scrapbooking supplies.

Photos are our link to the past. You need to make sure you are protecting them when putting them into albums.

Similar Posts: