Fix your water damaged photos

If you haven’t checked up on your print photos in quite some time, then we suggest you do so now. There are certain aspects that can affect their quality, and if you decide to send them to a digitizing photo service in Mississippi someday, the result will depend highly on their present condition. The most common restoration request is to fix some form of water damage, which could be the result of humidity, garage flooding, or other severe contacts with water. Even though photo restoration is possible, it’s ideal to send intact photos for digitization.


Don’t Panic - Do this instead!
Here’s how you can save your photos from getting lost forever:

• If you find that your photos are wet, don’t let them dry out. As they gradually dry, they will stick to one another. It will be impossible to separate them from any other material that came into contact. It may cause severe irreversible damage.  
• Get them digitized as soon as possible. The photographs should not stay wet for longer than two to three days. This is the time to get help from professional photo scanning services in Mississippi who can scan them before they’re ruined.
• While working on the photos, keep them in cold, clean tap water, and the colder it is, the better. The natural amount of chlorine in tap water is enough to prevent any growth of fungi and other biological threats. 
• Use a cold water container to rinse your photos instead of running the water directly onto them. That could permanently damage the chemical emulsion, which cannot be repaired. Rinse till the run-off water is clear.
• Remove your negatives or photos from the water carefully by picking each piece one by one. Do not force them apart. If you want to send them to a digitized photos service in Mississippi for scanning, then you’d have to strictly follow these tips.
• After you have separated the materials, store those in water until you can wash them using cold, clean running water individually. Use a cotton cloth to remove any debris or foreign object if needed.
• Hang-dry the negative and prints from a clothesline. Make sure the place you choose is free from dust and other airborne particles that may stick to the wet photos. Specific special solutions are also available that can facilitate spot-free drying when applied to negatives and prints.
• If, by chance, your prints curl while drying, then wet the paper side and not the emulsions with a moist sponge and place it between two pieces of acid-free paper or photo blotters. Leave them under a heavy object for a day or two.
  

It’s not too late if your photos had suffered water damage before you were able to get them scanned from a photo scanning service in Mississippi. Just follow this protocol and get them digitized today just so to preserve your legacy.