Last month I gave a new Zoom lecture for a geneology club entitled "Preserving Your Ancestors' Pictures". It went into a lot of interesting subjects that most of the attendees were unaware of (many of which were touched upon in this blog post from 2018, and I also discussed data preservation techniques I wrote about in this blog post from 2014 about digital bit rot).
The last part of that talk showed off some of the new capabilities of generative AI programs (the same programs that will ultimately erode trust in what you see and poison all of the internet, making anything on the internet wholely untrustworthy.) But until that happens, you can use programs like Google's Nano Banana Pro or Remini.ai to clean up old images. Below are some impressive examples I gave from the talk (click on any image to view larger and sharper):
Another point in the talk I've never blogged about is what to do with your old family photos once you've learned that nobody wants them. Geneologists I've spoken to tell me that interest in family history tends to go in cycles, with interest peaking every 3 generations or so. I've actually run into this problem myself, as all of my parents' photos have been digitized and made available to the family via Google Photos, and yet the physical photo albums remain and nobody (myself included) seems to have the extra space for them, yet also don't have the heart to throw them away.
In my talk, I discussed uploading such digitized images and captions to family history websites like geni.com, MyHeritage.com, or LegacyStories.org. But it feels like a shame to toss the original photo albums! All that living history -- out the window!
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| My mom, going through family photos, writing who was in each image on the back so future generations would know. She died in 2019. |
Here, the Internet Archive (https://archive.org) can provide nice home for historians. Most of you know its alter ego, The Wayback Machine, where you can find old content that has been removed from the internet. It turns out that the Internet Archive preserves more than just web pages - they will also provide a good home for home movies, podcasts, old radio plays, old TV shows, old software, old political ads, and the entire Library of Congress.
Not only will they accept scanned photo album pages, but you can even send the physical books to them and they will scan them for you - and then preserve the original album in their physical archive. Here's an example of the Patterson Family Photo Archive that is being preserved for future generations. And here are instructions for uploading and adding metadata. Want to donate physical artifacts like photo albums? Instructions for that are here.
National Geographic photographer David H. Wells, whose 50-year photographic career I wrote about in Cameracraft magazine back in 2024, has this problem in spades. “I love my daughter, but when I'm gone, I'm sure she's going to go through all this stuff and say, ‘Oh I like that picture of me’. Then she’ll toss the rest because they’re not relevant to her.” Through a lot of effort he managed to get his life's work preserved in the archives of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “Although I still have to do all the captioning and keywording” he says.
At the end of that article, he urged everyone who will listen to him to ask the following question: “What will YOU do with your imaging archive? What steps are you taking to ensure your work has a lasting impact and doesn’t evaporate? If you don’t want your life’s work going to the trash, then you should start acting NOW." Food for thought.
Next Time in Cameracraft Magazine
Nevada is a multiple award-winning photographer specializing in documenting the remote corners of the world and the cultures that inhabit them. Having worked with National Geographic for 30 years, she has built her impressive career on capturing the humanity of the people she meets. When the Iran war started, she decided to start sharing some of her favorite images from her three trips to Iran in 2017 and 2019 on social media. It was an effort to present another side of the country that the West never sees.
In the next issue, I sit down with her to discuss her photography, her career, and how, at 74, she's showing no signs of slowing down. Subscribe to Cameracraft Magazine digital edition for the full scoop!
Wanna Write Books on the Latest Cameras?
Are you a good photographer, technically inclined, and enjoy sharing your knowledge in clear terms? We're looking for people who might be interested in writing books for us in the future. Send us an email at info at Friedman Archives.com !
Parting Thought
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| Once upon a time, the ARPAnet was the conduit through which research institutions could share their findings. That turned into the internet which gradually morphed into a cesspool of ignorance (with some chemtrails thrown in). Today AI slop is exacerbating the problem exponentially by diluting whatever truth remains and then new AI models train on that. In a fitting show of irony, I created an AI image which illustrates the problem. :-) |
One thing I have done to save space is to pull photos out of photo albums, put them into photo boxes -- organized chronologically . Just easier to store in the long run. We'll see if my kids (or my siblings) will want these. I am slowly working through and digitizing these old prints (at least my favorite images). I only have about 15 years of photos left before I went all digital! I'm at about 1987 right now, LOL. Whenever I shoot film nowadays, I get scans from the processor.
ReplyDeleteI liked this: “The government of Iran IS malicious. The people are not. The people just have learned to…” I have been through a similar situation in comunist Romania.
ReplyDeleteHonestly the best way to save them is to digitize them, which yes is tedious, and then organize them by Folders where the folder names are such "2000-02-05 Little Jimmy's Birthday". Then once you have enough of them back them up to LTO tape. That tape can safely sit on a shelf for 20+ years. You can buy used external LTO5 tape drives for relatively cheap these days. Each tape will store 1.5TB of data (Uncompressed). LTO5 and newer use the LTFS file system which is simple as Drag and Drop within the Windows File System. The tapes are cheap enough you can make multiple copies for redundancy.
ReplyDeleteIs LTO tape still around? Didn't realize it was still viable. Sounds like a good option. But will your progeny be able / interested in reading the tapes?
DeleteIt's a lot easier to make periodic backups on external hard disks and replace them with new drives at least every 5 years. Having multiple backup copies ensures redundancy and additional protection against data loss due to drive failure.
DeleteThis procedure costs about $100-200 per year, depending on the HDD size (SSD are not necessary for archival storage) and the number of photos.
Backing up to the cloud provides additonal protection, if you are willing to spend another $100 per year.
I spent most of the COVID years digitizing my parents & my negatives. Then I added all my original & edited digital files and put that in a 4 Tb SSD the size of a match box. People asked me why I did that & I responded, "So they'll just have one small thing to show away when I die." Now comes the 70 odd photo albums. Is it worth the effort? Maybe my grandchildren will be interested in them but my children have culled through what interested them on their iPhones.
ReplyDeleteSSDs are not ideal for long-term storage, as data retention can degrade over time. HDD is a better option. The best: tape.
DeleteIndeed, SSDs have to be powered up at least once a year to retain their storage. HDDs can easily go 3-5 years (and often much longer) before degradation becomes a issue. The problem with tape is that special hardware is required to read them and this may not be available (or affordable) in the future. Keeping copies on up-to-date HDD tecnology is much more convenient and accessible.
Deletethat should read "throw away"
ReplyDeleteWe know what you meant but thanks.
DeleteHer er en oversættelse til engelsk, hvor jeg har lagt vægt på at bevare den tekniske præcision omkring Lightrooms funktioner og din specifikke arbejdsgang:
ReplyDelete"That is a very interesting issue you are addressing here, Gary. As a 63-year-old, I find myself right in the middle of this exact challenge. I am looking for an automated process in Lightroom, where I already consistently use the 'People' feature for naming individuals. This means Lightroom is already aware of the faces' positions in the image, and their names are already populated in the 'Keyword Tags' field.
What I am missing is an automated process that takes these tags and transfers them into the metadata 'Caption' field. Furthermore, I am looking for an automated way to display within an image who is who—either through numbering or a sketched 'copy-image' where the names are referenced. My ambition is to end up with an image that includes the Caption field below it, along with a sketch of the people referencing their names.
Do you know, Gary, if such a solution can be established so that the names only have to be entered once?"
Regards
Michael Christensen
The latest IPTC standard for metadata in JPG files now supports face data. If your Lightroom software supports this, face-id data can be embedded in the image file itself, thus making it accessible to other software. So no real need to store it in the Caption field, except that it is more accessible.
DeleteI use the face recognition software of ACDSee extensively and embed all this face-id data in the IPTC metadata.
Making screen-prints of displayed images with people names is one way to store this information in an easy to use way
Michael, what you've asked for is easily done using a Python script. And I can add to what you have proposed - I envision a script that recursively goes through your photo archive, reads the keywords field, copies them to the IPTC Captions field AND also adds them to the beginning of the file name, so these images can be uncovered using a simple operating system file search. Further, it could add 1 or 2 inches to the bottom of the image and have that extra white space populated by a human-readable version of these captions and keywords - no fancy software needed for future generations to easily ascertain what's in an image. Maybe I'll work on that when I return from travel.
DeleteMany thanks for your input and for taking the time to respond. It’s very interesting to know, but I am probably looking for more automation to avoid having to use screen prints. Primarily because it leaves me with two files to keep track of—the original image and the screen print image.
DeleteMany thanks, Gary. What you’re writing sounds very interesting. Having the Caption field become part of the bottom of the image is perfect. However, as is often the case when diving into the details, there are likely some challenges with this. In my case, I don't just have tags from face recognition, but also other information relevant to me—for example, a specific event, a specific location where the image is from, etc., etc. ...but challenges can usually always be solved.
DeleteWith this solution, would it be possible to specify that 'Uncle 1' is standing as number 1 in the back from the left, and 'Aunt' is standing as number 2, and so on?
It can be written so that EVERYTHING in the keyword and caption fields can appear in the bottom part of the image.
DeleteI also have this issue and selected to create books using KDP (the cheapest method) that I will give my children. Media vanishes into the ether, and boxes of photos get lost or tossed, but people keep books. The book also gives me the ability to tell the story of the images and a sort of bio as well.
ReplyDeleteYes, often when there's a fire people grab their hard drives and their photo albums / photo books!
DeleteEven though you have to pay to have an account (which can be either public or private), Ancestry works for me. Not only can I put family photos on it, it will show relationship lineage. It has been interesting to connect with distant relatives and view the gallery of photos they may have too. People are able to copy photos, news articles, documents to their own family tree as it suits them too. Ancestry is free at public libraries. Like Geni, My Heritage, etc, it is not always accurate.
ReplyDeleteMay 1, 2026 at 9:16 PM I had forgot to login so I am reposting.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting conversation. I have bunches of photo albums from the film days. Some of which are digitized thanks to my foresight to have them digitized at same time the film was processed. But, my wife gave me a 5 gallon bucket of prints from her side family she wants me to get digitized. Unfortunately, I do not know who most of the people are and she can't find the time to set down with me write down who the people are (that is the ones she knows). I just turned 75 and I keep telling her time is getting short. She is the eternal optimist and assumes we have for ever. 😍 Got to love her.
"....Today AI slop is exasperating the problem exponentially..." Yes, it is "exasperating", but perhaps you mean "exacerbating" in this context? I solved my physical media problem in a large black trash bag to the incinerator.
ReplyDeleteWhoops! Fixed. Thanks for keeping me honest. 😊
Delete