Picture Organizing in Boxes

If you have a lot of pictures, it may make sense to organize your photos into picture boxes, rather than bulky photo albums. Acid-free, archival quality picture boxes can be labeled on the outside as well as organized with tabbed index cards inside. No more pictures stuck to gluey pages, loose pictures sliding out of pages, or pages falling out of albums.

Michael's Crafts carries acid free photo boxes (make sure the label actually says acid-free)as does Exposures Catalog . Exposures' are about 1/2" taller, which makes it possible to include 5x7" pictures without having to separate them out.

Getting photos out of those old albums can be a real chore. Fortunately, there is a product called "Un-do" which can safely dissolve old glue, but better than the solvent is the little plastic lifting tool that comes with the bottle. Work it gently and patiently. When removing photos from difficult situations, think of it as removing the paper from the back of the photo rather than removing the photo from the paper.

When you have a situation where two photos are back to back, scan before you do anything. In fact, try to scan any valuable photos before taking apart an album apart. Sometimes, the photo just cannot be removed without damage, so you just have to keep it attached to the old paper.