It’s Time to Digitize! How to Preserve and Share Your Old Photos and Videos

What’s the first thing that people grab when there’s a fire? Besides the cat? We all know… it’s the photos. The old prints that have been around for a generation or two or three, that tell the story of your family. But not everyone is so lucky, we’ve seen the recent catastrophic fires in LA burn up thousands of buildings. Unfortunately, many families and even businesses lost their irreplaceable photo collections. What can be done to prevent such loss? It’s time to digitize.

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Will your memories stand the test of time?

The answer depends on how you store and archive your memorabilia today. We’re not simply talking about digitizing old pictures and home movies. We’re preserving your childhood, your family memories, your wedding day - your life, for future generations to enjoy.

Videotapes, films & photos are already degrading. VCRs & projectors are now obsolete - meaning there’s no way to view this footage in it’s current state. Not only that, but VHS tapes lose about 10-20%of their quality over the span of 10 to 25 years. Do you still have tapes from the 80s and 90s? Get them digitized! Printed photographs stored in basements or attics are at additional risk of fading and environmental catastrophes. The sooner you take preservation steps, the better.

What is photo archiving?

“Photo Archiving” is the process of preserving your photo collection, and a “Photo Archive” is your organization system for your photos and how you store them. A photo archive can be a physical collection, or a digital one, or both. If your photos are important to you, we recommend having BOTH, digital copies and physical prints. This article covers the process of converting physical photo collections to digital, and what to do once you get your digital images.

At Horn Photo, we offer many specialty photo and video archiving services. Our in-house photo lab offers Photo Scanning Services to digitize your collections of prints, negatives and slides. We also offer Video Transfer Services to convert video tapes and movie film reels to current formats. We can transfer audio cassette tapes too! This helps safeguard photos and videos from the effects of aging and deterioration and prevent loss in the case of a disaster. Once your photos and videos are digitized you can save them to your devices and upload them to the cloud where they’ll be safe. Having a digital photo archive makes it easy to share digital copies with your loved ones. You can even take those digital photos and make more printed copies for the whole family to cherish.

We Offer Photo & Video Archiving Solutions For

• Personal Photo Collections
• Family History Preservation
• Downsizing
• Estate Planning
• Divorce
• Commercial & Business
• Institutions

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What we digitize

• Photographs - all shapes & sizes
• Slides- loose or in carousel
• Video tapes – VHS, mini video tapes, compact VHS, hi-8, digital 8 & mini-dv
• Album pages & scrapbook pages
• Home movie reels, 8mm, Super 8, 16mm
• Negatives - 35mm, 120, large format negatives, odd size negatives. The only exception is we cannot scan 110 film
• Audio cassettes
• Documents & awards
• Artwork

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What you receive

You’ll receive all of your original prints and videos back, and your digital files will be provided either on a CD, DVD, or USB / thumb drive. Pictures will be saved as .JPG files. Movies can be converted either to an .MP4, or to a DVD format for a DVD player.

Thumb Drive - contains your digital files

• Ideal for laptops and computers
• Ideal for sharing digital copies
• Better if you plan to edit your photos or videos
• Compatible with modern TVs that can play MP4 videos from USB

Archive CD / DVD - contains your digital files.

• CDs are suitable for smaller photo orders
• We use DVDs for larger orders because they have more space than a CD.

DVD Player Video - video playing format

• This format is for videos only and can be used with a TV or computer with a DVD player.
• Not compatible with video editing

Who wants a copy?

Consider who else would enjoy a set of the files: parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, children, etc. It’s far too complicated & risky to pass the same thumb drive around to family members. Once your materials are digitized, it’s easy and affordable for us to make multiple copies of thumb drives or DVDs. Make a list to make sure no one is left out.

Backup Your Photos Online

After you receive your digital files, we strongly encourage you to save them to a personal device like your computer AND creating an offsite backup online. There are several services you can use like Google Photos, iCloud, Amazon Photos, Dropbox, or Microsoft OneDrive. This will ensure you can access your files in case of a disaster like a fire, or if your computer hard drive fails.

Tips for prepping your photos for digitizing

Bring in your collections of photos and videos to Horn Photo to get started! Here’s how to get your photos ready to be scanned.

Remove photos from albums

We do recommend removing all photos from album pages prior to bringing them in. That way you get the best pricing possible so we can bulk scan your photos individually. Unfortunately we cannot take them out of albums for you.

Remove duplicates and duds

We recommend removing any duplicate photos or photos that you don’t want scanned - like those pictures of thumbs over the disposable camera lens.

For photos stuck in albums

There are some occasions where photos are stuck in albums - like the dreaded magnetic photo albums with sticky pages. If that’s the case, we can scan the whole page. We will need the pages removed from the binding so we can flatbed scan them. We can also scan scrapbook pages too!

For prints stuck to glass

If you have a framed photo that is stuck to the glass - DO NOT peel it off! This risks ripping the original photo and damaging it further. Bring it in and we can scan or photograph it through the glass.

For damaged and faded photos

If you have any photos that are ripped, faded, torn or otherwise damaged, you can also consider our Photo Restoration Services where we digitally repair your precious photo to be like-new again! We can also create special edits like adding or removing someone from a photo, colorizing black and white photos and more! Bring in your original photo for a quote.

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Additional services

• VHS Tape Repair we can fix a broken cassette and splice film
• Image retrieval from older media formats like floppy disks
• CD and DVD duplications
• Print duplication
• Phone media archiving

There are a few things we can’t archive

We can’t scan or transfer copy written professional photos without written permission from the photographer. We also can’t transfer professionally produced videos and audio, for example, Jane Fonda’s workout VHS tapes or Linkin Park audio cassettes. We also cannot copy legal documents such as passports or drivers licenses.

Create, Enjoy & Share

Once your memorabilia is digitized, there are hundreds of creative ways to enjoy, share and delight others. You could host a movie night and watch those family videos from the 80s and 90s.

The Horn Photo Lab has so many creative print options for your photos. You can add your favorites to a custom photo book for all to enjoy! Create large prints for your wall, canvas prints, or collages! You can have a vintage photo printed on a puzzle to enjoy together, print a photo mug.

Keep your memories safe & local

Never ship away family archives, treasured photos & irreplaceable home movies for cheap digitizing and scanning services. It’s too risky! We have been preserving memories for decades and will treat your memories with the utmost care & expertise.

Start your photo and video archiving project today!

Bring in your original photos and videos to Horn Photo so we can begin your archiving order. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions about the process, our number is (559) 225-5080, or visit the store. We’ve been helping make memories last since 1937.

Horn Photo, Fresno’s Camera Center & Photo Lab

7899 N. Blackstone Ave.
Fresno, CA 93720

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