GIFT GUIDE

groupings and organized categories
of digital photos on your computer.
Check out www.dotphoto.com, for
free online album organizers, along
with competitively priced prints
and a free viewer software available
on the company's website. But if
you're still processing your film the
old-fashioned way, you might need
a little help.
One person you can turn to is
Pam Cooper of Farmington Hills,
an independent consultant for
Creative Memories. Cooper teach-
es people the importance of
organizing and preserving pho-
tos, and most importantly, how to
use the tools available in a quick
and easy manner. Cooper empha-
sizes how simple organizing pho-
tos can be. She says, "If you're
crafty, that's great. But, the idea of
Creative Memories is to just get
your albums organized." She goes
on to explain that all you need to
organize your pictures is an
album, adhesive, pictures and a
pen.
Cooper teaches two types of
classes on scrapbooking — home
shows and home classes — that
focus on organizing, sorting and
cropping your pictures, placing the
photos into the album and journal-
ing the photos. Cooper will come
to your home or workplace and do
a demonstration on how to make a
scrapbook. Her home classes are
a little more interactive. They cost
$10 per person, but each person
gets to bring in five or six photos to
make a sheet of their own. Cooper
also facilitates Free Crop Night
each month at her house for cus-
tomers and guests to use her sup-
plies and her guidance to make
their own scrapbooks.
Cooper explains how important
it is to organize your pictures. She
says, "I don't have a lot of history
documented — my mom only has
two or three pictures from her
childhood. Now that I have a
child, it's even more important to
me [to organize my pictures]. By
the time my daughter's older, I
want her to be able to see all the
people that were important to her
that may not be around anymore."
So, along with teaching other peo-
ple how to scrapbook, Cooper has
been working on a scrapbook proj-
ect of her own by documenting the
life of her 11-month-old for her
mother, Lolly Friedman.
Friedman says that she is delighted

(continued on page 22)

Do's and Don'ts
for Photo Storage

Archivist Craig A. Tuttle, author of
An Ounce of Preservation: A Guide to
the Care of Papers and Photographs,
(Rainbow Books, $12.95) offers the
following tips to ensure you'll enjoy
your photographs for years to come.

1. Don't store pictures in envelopes
or shoeboxes. Neither are ph-bal-
anced or lignin free — lignin is the
bonding element, which holds wood
fibers together. It causes paper to
change color and become brittle,
and can adversely affect precious
photographs.

.

2. Don't be afraid to throw blurry,
fuzzy, badly composed or duplicate
pictures away. You don't need them.

'4343-T, WI:me

3. Don't expose framed photo-
graphs to sunlight. They'll fade away.

4. Do use frames featuring plexi-
glass instead of glass — plexiglass fil-
ters out dangerous UV rays.

5. Don't store pictures in the base-
ment or attic, or anywhere with an
unstable humidity level and temper-
ature.

6. Do spend a little more for
archival quality albums. Check out
www.gaylord.com for an idea of
what's out there or stop by your
local photo store.

7. Don't keep pictures in old mag-
net photo albums. The acidic adhe-
sive on the back of the plastic will
eventually wear through the image.

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10. Do organize pictures in cate-
gories, such as special events, -vaca-
tions, people, pets, etc. Then, jTou
can organize chronologically within
each category if you like.

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COUPON EXPIRES 12/20/03

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9. Do have old nitrate negatives
copied. Nitrate is a volatile substance
and will degenerate. (Nitrate riegs
are pre-1960, often have nitrate
written on the side, and spiel
strongly of vinegar).

111= MIMI NM MIS

ANY SINGLE ITEM
IN OUR GIFT SHOP
$20 or more

8 . Do write notes on the back of

pictures using a soft lead pencil or
archival pen, never a felt tip or ball-
point, which can bleed through the
image.

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32910 MIDDLEBELT

(at 14

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(Next to Nino's/Strawberry Hill)

FARMINGTON HILLS

(248) 855-1177

IN

12/12

2003

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