How to photograph your collection at home

My wonderful colleague, Lisa Zaslow of Gotham Organizers, asked me to write a piece on how amateur photographers can shoot items at home. Her new e-book is coming out soon. We'll keep you posted.

I decided to share this with all of you, too. Good luck shooting!

• Take a variety of photos to show the item from different angles—at least one of each side. Don't forget photo details of labels and the manufacturer, as well as flaws and damages to items. Be honest with your images! If you plan to sell anything in the future, it will save you and the buyer time and money, especially on eBay where items are often mailed.


• Enhance the quality of the pictures using your computer’s photo editor. Crop out the surrounding environment of the item. It's not necessary to include the carpeting or ceiling of the room, or your backyard, just the item. Do NOT use photo editing software to remove defects from your item, but use it to crop, adjust the color of lighting in your room, and straighten the image.


• Clean up! Before shooting you must do the following: clear any clutter from the furniture, dust objects with a microfiber cloth, and clean off fingerprints and any glass.


• The best way to photograph your items is in the shade—never direct sunlight. Cloudy or overcast outside? Perfect weather! You can shoot all day. Bring your items outside to your driveway or lawn, place them in the shade and shoot. You will get gorgeous images and need very little color correction. 


• If you are in an apartment and don't have access to an outdoor space, clear away all of the clutter in one part of a room, vacuum your floor, and then turn on all of the lights. Then shoot with your flash. If you get a bright spot from the flash on your item and you are using a point and shoot camera, take a small piece of white cardboard, aluminum foil, or paper and form a small U-shaped piece about 3x3 inches which we will call a "bouncer." Hold or gently scotch tape your "bouncer" under the flash on your camera so only the top portion of your flash is open. Then go ahead and shoot, this will bounce the light to the ceiling instead of directly at your item. This is a trial and error process, but works great.



• If you have a DSLR camera, you can avoid a bright flash spot on your item by purchasing a Light Scoop ($29.95 + shipping, pictured above) This will easily bounce light for more professional looking images.



• If you plan to shoot many items, you might want to invest in an inexpensive backdrop to improve your pictures. You can also go to a fabric store and purchase a large piece of black velvet (great for jewelry and many other items) or a piece of white velvet. Velvet will not reflect light and photograph beautifully. Be sure to clean. You can use Pony Clamps to hang your backdrop from a bookshelf or window sill.


• The most common problem I see are close-up photos or "details" of an item taken with a camera that will not focus at such a short range. Make a small investment in a good camera or rent a macro lens from your DSLR from Calumet or Adorama. This little Canon Elph will let you focus up to 2 inches and sells for $149.00. I also love the Nikon Coolpix, which will also let you focus up to 2 inches in macro mode.
 
• In general, photos are great, but description is also an important part too. You must measure the pieces, including lengths, widths, heights, and clearances; weigh them if needed; list materials, year of manufacture, all damages and effects along with photos. Take a few extra minutes to document a thorough description with clear descriptive images, so you won't have to remember later.

What Is Resolution and Why Do I Care?

Thinking of scanning and printing old photographs? Want to avoid pixelated or blurry images? It's so important to make the right choices when scanning or purchasing a home scanner.

REMEMBER: You can't add more resolution, you can only take it away. 

Every digital image is measured by its resolution in dpi dots per inch. The higher the dpi of your file, the higher the resolution, and the more flexibility you have when printing the image. In most cases, you need at least 240dpi to print an image, although 300dpi is preferable and the standard size. This also means making sure the settings on your camera are at a proper resolution when taking new photos. When scanning printed photographs, the actual size of the scan matters, too. If you scan an image at 4x6 inches with 300dpi, you can never print the image larger than 4x6 inches. We recommend scanning images at a minimum of 8x10 inches with 300dpi. These files are usually between 1.5 and 3.5MB in size or larger.

Image printed at 72 DPI

Image printed at 300 DPI

While you may not want to print your images right away, it can be a waste of time and money to only scan images for online use at 72 dpi. Images for websites, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, or your own personal or professional website, only need to be 72dpi. These files are usually between 120 and 400KB in size. In most cases, any image at 300dpi will be just too big to upload and overkill for websites. But remember, you can't add more resolution to your files in the future, you can only take it away. Re-sizing an image from 300dpi to 72dpi won't distort it at all. Distortion only comes when you try to increase the resolution. And trust us, it's disappointing. Just take a look at the photos to your left. The image at the top is what your photograph will look like if it's scanned and printed at 72dpi or photographed as a small jpg with your camera. The image on the bottom is what your picture will look like if it's scanned and printed at it's proper size, 300dpi — crisp, clear, and beautiful.

If you are not interested in hiring a bulk scanning company, we love the Epson Perfection V700 Photo Scanner. It's our favorite for a number of reasons: It scans slides and negatives of all different sizes. The outcome is crisp and the scanning interface is instinctive and easy to use, both in the professional mode as well as the home user mode.

Many of our clients ask us to create photo albums from their digital photos. We run into a roadblock when clients hand us images shot at the lowest resolution jpgs. You can usually only print these images at 3 x 5" or smaller.

The general rule for shooting is this: shoot at the highest resolution your camera allows and buy extra camera cards.

We always say that a $20 camera card is cheaper than losing the ability to ever print a photo from an important event or a once in a lifetime vacation!

Do you have recommendations for home scanners? Let us know your favorites below!

Organize and Store Old Advantix Negatives

Do you have shoeboxes or bags filled with exposed Advantix film canisters lying around? Not sure what to do with the blueprints to your favorite pictures? The problem with these canisters is that they're difficult to store because they're bulky and take up room.

The Advanced Photo System (Kodak's Advantix, Fujifilm's Nexia) was first produced in 1996 and only recently discontinued in 2011. But before you throw out decades of memories, think about organizing them in a simple, efficient, and space-saving way. It's always important to save negatives to make duplicates or enlargements in the future.

Step 1: Pop open the canister at the seam with needle rose pliers by breaking the plastic. It will open on hinges and inside will be a small roll of your negatives.

Step 1

Step 2

Handle the negatives with white cotton or nylon gloves (preferably) or very clean hands to avoid fingerprints. Only touch the edges of your negatives.

Step 2: Unspool the negatives and place into negative sleeves. I prefer Print File but negative sleeves can be purchased at B&H, Adorama, Exposuresonline.com, or your local photo store.

Step 3: Cut the negative into strips that fit your particular set of negative sleeves. Some fit 4 negatives while others fit 5 or 6. 

Step 4: Place the negatives into their respective sleeves in the order that works best for you. All sleeves are made to fit into a three-ring binder, but be sure to store them flat into an archival binder. I love Archival Methods. Other great resources are Kolo.com and Exposuresonline.com.

Step 3

Step 4

Be sure to recycle the canisters in your local area!

Cyndi Shattuck in New York Family magazine!

Our archiving services were recently featured in New York Family. A special thank you to Jessica Roblin and the team at New York Family, who noted Cyndi's "personal touch can be seen in all of her projects, and when it comes to preserving family memories, that’s really what matters the most."

Read the full article online at New York Family.

Flooded Album, Paper & Photos, Hurricane Sandy

I have started to get calls about the recovery and conservation of flood soaked documents, photos, scrapbooks, and albums from Hurricane Sandy.

I am dealing with these items on a case-by-case basis because many of these items are too toxic for me to deal with in my studio.  These items have been soaked with sea water, sewage and various chemicals.  So please be careful on how you deal with them and tell your clients to deal with them. Never touch them with bare hands and please look at them outdoors or in a well ventilated area.

Many of the people who call me are also storing these items in such a way that will promote the growth of mold, which will hurt humans too!

Please read the steps below and feel free to share with clients that are dealing with these types of items.

Things you will need to arrest the damage:
disposable gloves
goggles
dust mask
old clothes
hairdryer
untreated dust wipes
clean NEW cardboard box
packing tape
paper towels
wax paper
silica gel
and bleach cleaning spray

STEPS TO TAKE IMMEDIATELY:
-- Preferably with disposable gloves, goggles, and a dust mask, bring the books and photos into your bathtub/shower area when your shower is dry.

-- Wear old clothing that you will wash immediately separate from your other clothing.

-- Continue to dry the albums with a hairdryer on a low setting, until the books and binding are very dry.

-- This will help stop the mold growth and blow away some of the dirt.

-- Then gently wipe the books and photos down with a DISPOSABLE UNTREATED (no mineral oil, scents or chemicals) dust cloths, continually throwing away the dust cloths after each side is used or dirty.  You do not want to transfer mold or dirt from one page or image to the next. I like these Pleade Dust and Allergen Cloths or any other variation will do. You can find these at Duane Reade, CVS and most grocery stores.

-- Place wax paper in between pages of the album and/or photos to keep them from contaminating each other.

-- After this place in a clean, NEW cardboard box along with some of my favorite Dry-Packs Silica Gel Packs. These come 5 to a package and work very well.

-- Do not tightly seal your box, leave one or two air holes for additional moisture to escape. You can punch a few holes in your box with a pencil to let air escape.

-- Remove the hairdryer from your shower, spray your shower/tub area with bleach spray and rinse down well.

-- Rinse off your goggles with bleach spray, then dry with paper towels.

-- Throw away immediately: dust cloths, gloves and dust mask. Tie trash bag shut and remove from your apartment.

-- Take off contaminated clothing, place in a laundry bag separate from the rest of your laundry. Wash separately in the hottest water, and dry clothing on the hottest setting.

-- Store photos and albums away from people, but in an open air setting, away from moisture or a bathroom. They can be in the corner of a room, but I wouldn't store them in a closet or basement. Keep away from mice, silverfish, roaches. Mice and insects love the taste of gelatin (from your photos), paper and glue…

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