Millions of people have got boxes and albums filled with old family photos gathering dust at home. This is a shame, as while you might enjoy digging them out every few years, most of the time they’re stored somewhere out of sight and underappreciated.
There are a lot of ways to transform your relationship with physical pictures from your past, so here are just a few solutions that might inspire a personal project this year.
Turn Them Into Ornaments
If you have old family photos stuffed in drawers, hidden away in boxes, or tucked away in albums, then why not turn them into beautiful ornaments which you can then put on your mantelpiece, hang on your wall, or even add to your Christmas tree when the holidays roll around.
You can easily find materials to make the ornaments at craft stores, and there are useful guides online to make the conversion quick and easy. It’s a great way to share your family history and to bring your old photos back out of hiding more frequently.
Give Them As Gifts
What better way to show someone how much you care than by giving them a one-of-a-kind gift that is both meaningful and personal?
Giving photo gifts is the perfect way to rekindle the memories associated with those special pictures. You can give framed prints, photo books made from digital images, and even eye-catching calendars featuring their favorite snaps. There are so many lovely ways to keep these cherished moments alive while honoring your loved ones.
Get Your Photos Converted To Digital And Enhanced
If you haven’t already done so, consider converting all of those precious memories into digital files so they can be saved forever and used as you see fit without compromising the original.
With today’s technology, there are many online services available to scan photos that will take care of this task for you quickly and efficiently, with minimal effort on your part – plus they look great too!
Once digitized, these photos can be enhanced with color correction which will help bring them back closer to their original state if needed. You can even have experts fix imperfections, repair damage, or crop out parts of family snaps seamlessly.
Make Them Accessible To Others Via The Cloud
Another advantage of converting old photos into digital files is that it’s then easy to distribute them to anyone else who may have an interest in viewing and engaging with them.
With the help of cloud storage services such as Google Drive and Dropbox, it’s possible for friends and family to access pictures from anywhere in the world and at any time.
This is useful for helping people you know and love conduct their own photo projects using real historic snaps from the family archives. Furthermore, modern storage services offer other features, like tagging people and places within each image, which will enable future generations to connect with their past.
Send Them Off For Expert Appraisal
Finally, if you want to learn more about the historical context of the photos you’ve accumulated, it’s worth considering whether contacting a specialist in analyzing images is worthwhile.
This might be as simple as checking if there’s a local historian who knows about the background of your town, city, or region, and would be willing to cast an eye over pictures of people and places who are connected with your family but might no longer be in living memory of its members.
Wrapping up
Don’t let your family photos languish unseen; take action and use these tips and services to revive their place in your home and your life.