smoke fire and water damaged photos

Well, I'm starting in this forum but if anyone could suggest a diff forum to

crosspost in, please do so.

There was a fire in my town on Wednesday displacing 24 families from their

apartments. We are a small town are are in the process of scrambling to donate

food, clothing, furniture, money, etc...

Last night in thinking of what we had to donate, my mind kept shifting to the

loss of photographs. Until a few years ago, I wouldn't have known that many

damaged photos can be restored. I became concerned that if some of these people

are allowed into their homes to retrieve anything, they may not think their

photos are beyond salvageable when in fact, some may be. A quick google search

turned up a couple of sites that gave tips on how to initially handle damaged

photos. Not knowing anything myself about this, I wasn't quite sure if these

tips were for professional companies with huge resources for restoring museum

quality papers and photos or tips that may be applied on a smaller scale to

personal photos. I read things like keeping the photos wet if water damaged, not

peeling apart, freezing, etc....

I have just begun to learn photoshop techniques and hope to someday be able to

restore photos myself and would do my best voluntarily to work on photos for

these families or to direct them to places that can help - however, in the

immediate future, my concern is in how these photos should be handled right now.

- I have spoken up to those heading up the relief efforts and hope to try and

come up with advice (very soon) on what people should do with their damaged

photos in the immediate future.

I am hoping the photo.net community can advise me on what advice to give or

point me to any resources to learn such information.

Again, I am not really asking for the actual restoration help right now (though

I'm sure those questions will come) - but for preservation attempts, what to do

with damaged stuff and are negatives salvageable, maybe more or less so than the

prints?

Sorry for the long drawn out request and thanks in advance for any advie!

It's very kind of you, Lauren, to be concerned about your neighbors in Danvers. I'd suggest that, in general, the material be handled as little as possible before it gets to whoever's going to do the work.

What has to be do will vary, of course, with the kinds of damage suffered by the originals. In the case of photos, scanning and Photoshop work will be able to help a lot if the damage isn't too severe. Even other forms of artwork, especially watercolors, can often be scanned and satisfactory replacement prints made. Having the work done professionally would be quite expensive, but a group of generous amateurs might be formed to offer their services on a pro bono basis. In turn, this would be a way for them to build a little business for themselves in the future.

Hi Lauren,

I'm a former resident of the North Shore, now a southern New Hamphire-ite.

Katrin Eismann has great books on photo restoration (for Photoshop users). I'd recommend grabbing one and using it as you help out some of these poor people.

If you want some extra help, please feel free to contact me. I'm not too far from Danvers and would be happy to lend a digital hand!

Carolyn

Yes, agreed -- ditto on the Eismann book.

I have it and love it; plus she has a great Web site.

Good for you Lauren and best of luck with your efforts to your displaced neighbors' photographic memories.

Also, if you have a couple images that need touching up (maybe you get overwhelmed?), once you've scanned them in or whatever, feel free to send/email me several and I'll do my best and give quick turnaround.

Thanks so much guys, Ken if I get to the point of actually trying to work on people's photos I will definitely being giving a shout out for help. I know pn is a great community and several people have helped others in the past.

Carolyn and Dick, actually, I am in Georgetown. (which is closer to you Carolyn than Danvers :) Actually, in the Danvers explosion, this hadn't even occurred to me as I'm not sure people's belongings were destroyed so much as the structural stability of their homes.

I will look into getting that book. I will possibly be attending a meeting tomorrow for all who want to offer any help and will know better after that if my help is even needed. There may be more experienced photoshop users or professionals who have already offered but I'm certainly up for trying.

I did find some stuff on the internet last night and forwarded it to some who are heading up efforts - one thing interesting to me was to wash the photos and to not try and peel apart drying ones, but to instead submerge them in water.

Thanks again guys. I'll keep you posted

Submerge in water - eeks! Haven't heard that but what do I know?

I did some work on fire damaged images and scanned them right through the glass that they had adhered to. Worked great.

You could ask one of the local museums what they would suggest. Peabody Essex would be able to give you some advise or at least, point you in the right direction.

Carolyn

Thanks Carolyn -I'm not so sure I would personally be taking someone's pictures and dunking them in water, but it did make sense sort of to me for the water damaged ones that have already been soaked.

Thanks for the Peabody idea, also, I just thought, there is a big conservation lab of some sort in Andover. - Found it. It is actually the page I emailed someone who is helping. - NOt sure many average people have daguerreotypes but it also addresses prints and negatives.

http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/waac/wn/wn10/wn10-2/wn10-202.html

For starters, families that have suffered a fire have way too much on their plate to be working immediately on their smoke or fire damaged photos. A first step would be to gather all recovered photos and put them in a freezer. The kind of nasty chemicals that get released in a fire is unbelievable - these chemicals can eat your photos. Freezing them slows down any potential chemical reactions. My brother's house burned down in Dec of 1999, and I sorry to say, I'm only now getting around to rewashing some of his smoke damaged slides. (So I procrastinate a bit!) They are just fine after being frozen for 7 years. He was extremely lucky, as his slides were on a bottom shelf of a bookcase. Items 2 feet higher were totally incinerated. One of the slide boxes I opened literally had the top slide melted, the next one just below it was OK.

Anyway, I'm finally rewashing, restabilizing and remounting these slides, and then immediately scanning them. They look fine right now, but I've heard that images can disappear simply from the effect of the smoke and the heat.

Chest freezers are relatively cheap.

Good luck.