How to label pictures before putting into albums?

July 31, 2009 12:57 PM

How do I label pictures I'm putting into albums?

Our family has tons of pictures we'd like to eventually scan. They're in boxes now. First, we'd like to put them into albums for safe keeping. We'd like to label older pictures with people's names or the occasion.

But what type pen? Do they make pens for this? Or should we use labels?

Any help is greatly appreciated. We don't want to hurt in pictures in the long term.

posted by gtr to media & arts (5 comments total)

Archival Pen
posted by sharkfu at 1:00 PM on July 31

Make sure anything you use says "archival safe." This includes pens, tape, glue, etc.

As to how to label (or collect) your pictures, I use separate scrapbooks for individual events. For scrapbooking, at least, it makes the process less daunting. I would also highly suggest adding names and dates--it's remarkable how quickly the memories fade.
posted by litterateur at 1:01 PM on July 31

Thanks to both of you!
posted by gtr at 1:02 PM on July 31

Are you going to scan them yourself or send them into a company who specializes in photo scanning? If you're going to do it yourself, no worries. If you're going to have a company do it, note that you might have to remove every picture from the albums to send in (or be charged a fee for the company to do it). It might be worth it to organize and label the photos and have them scanned before placing them in albums.

In fact, it would probably be easer to scan before putting in albums no matter which option you chose.

And, as litterateur said, make sure that everything is archival safe so that the items don't degrade the photo paper or the colors of the pictures.
posted by Aleen at 1:49 PM on July 31

i would recommend labeling the photos on their back sides, in archival pencil--graphite, the type that you sharpen yourself, not mechanical. That's how it's done in museum/archival collections. the idea is that it's chemically stable and reversible--you can always erase the marks if you decide to.
posted by safran at 8:47 PM on July 31