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Whether your house
was flooded or caught fire, your prized photos have probably suffered from
water damage. The first rule of handling water-damaged photos? ŇDonŐt Panic.Ó
You may be able to salvage many or all of your pictures. You might want to
contact a photo conservation professional or consult a book on the subject,
but here are a few tips:
1. DonŐt let the photos dry out! As your photographs
dry, they will stick to each other and any other materials they may be in
contact with. YouŐll find it impossible to pull them apart without causing
potentially irreparable damage.
2. Get to work as soon as possible. Your photographs
shouldnŐt stay wet for more than two or three days.
3. While youŐre working on your photos, store them in
a container full of cold, clean tap water. The colder the better. DonŐt add
chlorine to the water, but change the water every day. The chlorine in tap
water is enough to prevent the growth of fungi and other biological threats.
4. Rinse your photos in a container of cold, clear running
water. DonŐt run the water directly onto the photos, because that could damage
the chemical emulsion, causing permanent damage. Keep rinsing them until the
run-off water is clear.
5. Carefully remove your photographs or negatives from
the water, taking the smallest quantity possible. Pull them out of their wrappers
and gently separate them. DO NOT FORCE THEM APART. Separate as many as possible
before returning them to the cold water and starting on another batch. Repeat
the separate-soak cycle as many times as necessary. However, sometimes you
may not be able to separate materials without forcing the issue. In those
cases you will probably have to just accept the corresponding damage.
6. Once your materials are separated, store them in water
until you can wash them individually, using cold, clean running water. use
cotton balls, a soft cotton cloth or a soft foam rubber brush to remove foreign
objects if needed. Rinse your photographs or negatives one more time after
cleaning is complete.
7. Hang-dry prints and negatives from a clothesline.
Make sure they will not be exposed to dust. As an option, special solutions
are available that facilitate uniform, spot-free drying when applied to negatives
and slides. These solutions can be purchased from your local retail photo
lab or dealer.
8. If your prints curl while drying, wet the paper side
(NOT the emulsion!) with a moist sponge and place each one between two pieces
of acid-free paper or photo blotters, and leave them under a flat, heavy object
for a day or two.
Even if you follow
these instructions, some of your prints will probably suffer permanent damage.
In that case, take them Photo-60 to find out which photos can be restored.
YouŐll be surprised!
You can also learn more about modern photo restoration in our next article, "When Disaster Strikes."