Remember when you’d print out every photo in your film canister and they’d come back to you in the little paper sleeves? Capturing memories before the progression of digital cameras has its own nostalgia attached to it, but something that still remains from that era are the printed photos that still take up space in your home to this day. Narrow your collection of precious memories down with these tips for how to declutter your photo collection. It may be hard to let go, but if you’re short on storage, you may not have another option.
Rid Yourself of Duplicate or Useless Photos
When your negatives were printed at the store, they’d often come with a duplicate print of each photo. These duplicate pictures may double your collection if you’re still hanging onto them! As you sift through each box of pictures, set aside the duplicates. Since you still have the originals, you can gift the duplicates or even come up with an interesting crafting project to use them in and not worry about losing the image forever. If you’re not going to do anything with the duplicates, it may be time to shred and toss them.
As you go through your collection and find smudged, damaged, or otherwise unusable prints cluttering the space—throw them out. Unless you can restore them, there isn’t a point to keeping them around.
Digitize Your Collection
Any collection takes up less space on the computer than it does in the home. Scanning your photo collection ensures that they’ll be protected from any damage or disasters that may threaten your home. Digitizing may also make it easier to let some photos go so you can keep areas clean of clutter. Once you’ve digitized your photos, you can use them for a variety of creative projects on the computer or just send them to friends and family through social media.
If you are a technological savant with a lot of patience, you may want to digitize them yourself. But if you don’t have time to spare or a high-quality scanner, consider enlisting the help of a photo scanning service. Because some of these photos may be one-of-a-kind or otherwise precious, make sure to be thorough when asking the professionals any questions.
Use Photos To Renew Your Home
You may not have looked through your collection of printed photos in a long time if the clutter is bad enough. Sometimes, the best advice for how to declutter your photo collection simply involves reorganizing the photos or putting them to good use. There may be some shining stars among your overgrown collection, you just need to look. While you search, bring an empty album with you to put any outstanding or important photos in that you want to keep safe. For any walls that need decoration, place your favorite pictures in frames. The fact that they’ve been gone for so long will add to their nostalgia.
