I've heard many sad tales of people who have lost their original photos. Most of them have used original prints for scrapping and later regretted the style of the layout and would like to redo the page. Someone even left a treasured old family photo album to a scrapper and got a scrapbook back with cropped and stamped over pics that can never be restored.
Another common reason for losing original photos and negatives is by theft, fire or water damage. Last but not least, photo prints and even the negatives will deteriorate over time. So, what can you do to prevent loss of your treasured family memories?
Never Use the Originals
Always make a copy of the photo before using it in a layout. If it's an old photo print, scan it onto your computer's hard drive to make a digital copy and then order a new print to use for scrapping. This way, you also get an extra back up copy of the old photo which is great since negatives can get lost or deteriorate. This is also giving you a chance to correct discoloring in old photos in your photo software.
Ordering new prints also gives you a chance to order several copies if you'd like to share the memories and make several layouts for family members, or if you'd like to use several copies of the same photo in the layout.
The pics above show first the scanned discolored original from the photo album and then a version where I've somewhat corrected the color and contrast in Photoshop. It didn't get perfect but it did end up better than in the original.
I've also cropped the photo to get rid of unnecessary and ugly details at the edges (the part of the lamp in the upper left corner and the door post at the right), but please note that I've done this to a copy of the scanned original from the photo album. I still got the original scanned page! The reason that I keep the original scan is because I might get better software and better skills in the future and then it will be great to be able to do this all over again. (And by now, you probably get that I'm a true safety freak. LOL!) Since I used a high resolution when I scanned the photo, the cropped pic is still large enough to be printable.
Protect Your Digital Photos
What about digital pics? In this day and age we don't have to worry about losing the original photos, right? Well, be careful when you do digital scrapping or when you are preparing and retouching your photos before ordering the prints. It's too easy to open the original file in Photoshop, cut it, color it, reshape it, resize it, slap on some filters and then hit the Save-button. Oops. There went the original!
To avoid losing or writing over original digital files, make sure that you're having some back up. As soon as you empty your camera into the computer's hard drive, make another copy on an external hard drive and/or upload a copy online for extra safety. There are several great services for storing photos and files online. Many of them are free of charge, others take small yearly fees for extra storage. Storing your photos online protects them from computer break-down, theft, fire and water damage.
Another safety tip: When I do digital scrapping I create a special "page layout kit" folder on my computer. I start with copying the original photo files that I want to use into this folder. In this way, I can be sure not to lose the original file since I'm always working with a copy.
