Scrapping old photos...

So I have a bunch of old photo albums from my childhood...you know the ones the ones that have a lift of clear plastic and all the photos sit on a sticky background??
I am planning on going through all of them and scanning them and printing copies and scrapping a "book of me" for my son....I would like to do some pages about my childhood (one idea I was thinking of was doing a page about the technology we had...the tv that you had to get up and change the channel, records and tapes, typewriters etc..)

I also have a whole bunch of really old photos from my mother....photos of my grandparents and my mom growing up from the early 1900s to the 1950s. I am planning on doing a heritage album for my son of all his great-grandparents, grandparents, family tree type thing....

Questions.....
If you are doing pics from the 1970s for instance, do you try and use papers, embellishments that match the time period or not worry about it?
What sort of topics would you cover on a book of me? Page ideas?

How have you tackled heritage albums? Do you do a family tree in the album? What type of journalling do you do, if any? (don't have many stories about my grandparents)
Do you coordinate the whole book with papers etc., make it cohesive? Or do it like any other album?
Any advice on scanning old photos?

Feel free to add any advice you think is pertinent and give examples, if you have done pages like this!

Alison

Buy SEVERAL bottles of Un-do!!!!! It really helps to get the pics off that nasty mag stuff!!!

I say go w/ whatever papers match the pictures...

I second the suggestion for Un-Du on those old "magnetic" album pages if you can't easily pop them off.

Regarding the question as to embellies and such for the heritage pages you plan, I think it's really a matter of personal choice. I am working on a big heritage album and am trying to use colors, patterned papers, and embellies that tie into whatever period I'm working on. I think it will be fun to sort of change styles with each decade -- can hardly wait to get to the 60's with the wild colors, pop art and memorabilia of those crazy years of my teens. However, I do every so often run across an old photo and think to myself what fun it would be to do a crazy, no-holds-barred, totally off the wall mini-album for myself after I finish this big project for the rest of the family.

I did an album of my brother who passed away when he was 44 for his then 8 year old son. My mother had kept everything on him. Even as an adult, newspaper articles he had written, awards he had won.

I put a family tree in the front, just because as time goes on and he grows, he doesn't have as much contact with our side of the family as they used to. Someday he may need/want to know about his dads heirs. I then started with his baby photos. My dad was in Japan during war, so there were plenty. I also put photos of the parents and grandparents. He looks like our side of the family. I used papers that matched the pictures, and age frame. Nothing real drastic through the whole book, and it flows well.

I ended it with football photo of him in his uniform, and his dad in his uniform. They were even the same number. Uncanny resemblance. I gave it to him when he turned 18. I didn't take any photos of the book. I know I should have! I keep thinking I will get it out and take photos sometime when I'm there (they live 2-1/2 hrs away), but I forget when I'm there.

I'm in the process of doing heritage albums for both sides of my family. Doing three albums for each of my grandparents family. I'm doing a page for each family memeber with names of them and their children who ever included in the photos I put on the layout.
I'm also thinking copying old family stories and putting in a 8 1/2 x 11 page protector and putting it next to layout out about that person. At the end of my heritage album going to be different kinds of newspaper clippings of the family. So it matter of different in perfences and taste to the person. Hope you have fun with process of your album.

Justie

Answering your question about “should you use scrapbooking materials that reflect the time the photos were taken”, you could but it’s not required. It might be fun to incorporate some retro elements like the colors, fonts, styles, that were popular at the time. With the internet it is easy to research and get ideas. And there are many scrapbooking materials that are specific to a time period. Or you may simply want to use the white boarders that came on photos from that era and use photo corners.

Personally, I would think twice about cropping photos. There is something wonderful about exploring the background in older photos. Example: Sure we are interested in grandma’s face but check out that wood paneling and funky lamp she had. And for some reason the standard rectangular photo size, polaroid size or slide is locked in our brain when it comes to older photos. When you start messing with the proportions of older photos or even making it square, round, or heaven forbid a shape it can create an uneasy feeling. We are just not used to looking at our older photos in different shapes.

When it comes to scanning advice…
- Try a few different settings (like adjusting the contrast, brightness, etc.) until you find something you like.
- If you do use a feature that eliminates dust & scratches, look closely at the scan and compare it to your photos. Sometimes that feature make the scans too fuzzy.
- Use care when closing the scanner before you scan. Be sure you get a good light seal. If there is a special white backing you are supposed to use with your scanner use it.
- Every 10 or so scans, clean your scanning glass.
- You don’t have to perfectly align your photo when you are scanning BUT it really does cut done on the amount of time you spend later adjusting your scans. And rotating a scanned image does degrade it slightly.
- speaking of adjusting your scans, always keep a copy of your raw scan. So if you just don’t like a bunch of adjustments you made you can go back and use the original scanned files.
- Try as I might to do multiple photos, I always end up with one photo in each file anyway. So I only scan one photo at a time.
- Scan extra photos. You may not think you will use them but it’s easier to throw a few extras in while your scanning then to set up again to scan months later because you need just one more photo for a page. (or you forgot to scan a photo of a particular relative).

And, spread a few printouts of your scanned photos to your relatives in Christmas cards now. They will love it!

Ditto to all the above. I get so involved in looking at the backgrounds of old pictures, that I sometimes forget to look at the people :>) Old wallpaper, furniture, appliances can also bring back lots of memories. If I want to highlight a person better, I use the picture twice. Once the way it is, then enlarge it and crop the people. I do this especially in old outdoors pics, before we all had good, cheap telephoto lenses.

I don't usually have my scanner make adjustments since I don't trust it. I scan, save it, then start playing, making any adjustments in lighting/contrast/dust or scratch removal, etc. in my graphics program. My best hint is to find a graphics program that seems friendly to you, then learn everything you can on how to use it. You don't need to spend a lot of money to get one that will work miracles on pictures. There probably are free ones available. I use PhotoImpact, but it was taken over by Corel and for me, it's just no longer as user friendly. Whatever program you chose, get familiar with all it will do, and photo editing can become part of the fun of the LO.

I normally scan in 300 dpi, but if I know I'm going to print it, and especially if it's poor quality, then I scan in 600. If I'm working on a LO, I scan every picture from that time frame or occasion, then use some in the LO, but save them all on a couple of hard drives. For me, I like to use the originals of old, old photos because they'll be cared for better in an album with a page protector than they would be in a box, but I still have the scanned copy, if the worst should happen. Scanning in 300 saves a good quality copy, but doesn't fill up hard drives too fast :>) ~Judy

Yeah, I don't cut the old black and white photos either. I use photo corners so they are not actually adhered, but are still in an acid free environment. They can be removed if need be.

Thank you for all the advice....
I always scan photos one at a time and usually do 600 dpi
I was thinking of printing the ones that I'm going to use from the computer and put the old ones in separate page protectors for safety....
not sure yet....
I use Photoshop Elements 10 for my photos.
Using one original photo and one cropped photo for faces is a great idea!

So has anyone done a book of Me? What type pages did you do using old photos?

Alison

Here is a link to ideas

http://www.scrapbook.com/forums/showtopic.php?tid/13747...

I have a few layouts in my gallery of book of me ideas.