There’s a good amount of young people who have never gone to a drugstore to get their photos developed and printed. Just 15 years ago, some of us were taking pictures with actual cameras and were limited to 24 or 36 photos we could take at time on actual film. Each roll of film was a couple of dollars to purchase which meant the photos that were taken needed to be good and memorable. Back then we didn’t have smartphones with digital cameras, where we could take unlimited photos and store them to the cloud for free. It’s never been more convenient than now to take and share photos with smartphones and apps such as Google Photos.
For those of you who grew up before the invention of digital cameras, you probably have a treasure chest of photos being physically stored where they’re rotting away. Ink fades and paper rots over time. Improperly storing printed photos will speed up the decaying – light, humidity and temperature are important factors to consider for preservation.
If you have ever asked yourself, “what would I take if my place were on fire and I only had a minute to grab my possessions (outside of loved ones and pets), what would I grab?” There’s a high probability you would say your photos. For most, their photos are very important. We can replace clothing, televisions, computers and the like, but we can never get our photos back.
Google offers a free tool within the Google Photos app for iOS and Android, as well as standalone apps, to preserve your pre-digital memories. It’s called Photoscan and does exactly as its name implies. It scans your photos and helps you automatically align the images while removing any glare created by the flash or background lighting.
First get your photos out. You’ll be scanning them one at a time, so set some time aside to get them all completed. All you have to do is follow the step by step instructions Google has laid out for you within the app. You’ll first take one picture of the picture, and then take four more subsequent pictures by aligning the dots in the image. Once your photos are scanned you can realign and edit them and Google will automatically add them to your Photos collection.
It’s really that easy and there is no excuse for you not to be preserving your pictures. Don’t wait until it’s too late and your photos are gone. Google’s Photoscan app is a must have and can be found at the App Store or Google Play Store free of charge.