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For some families, summer is a relaxing time to recharge after the stress of the school year. For others, it’s a packed period full of camps, family visits, and vacations. If you are mapping out your plans, consider putting together a list of projects to do during the summer that you haven’t been able to work on when the kids are in school. These might range from sorting clothes and donating what no longer fits to deep cleaning each room. One of your top projects should be to digitize your photos this summer.
There are several benefits of digitizing your photos sooner rather than later. You can protect the memories while saving space in your home. Here are five reasons to take on this project – and how you can involve your kids in the experience.
1. Photos Fade and VHS Tapes Break Down
You might think that your memories are forever, but your photos are already starting to break down. VHS tapes (and other camcorder recordings) lose up to 20% of their quality every 10-25 years. If you still used a handheld recorder when your kids were little or when you were dating your spouse, these tapes are already starting to wear out.
Photos can also break down and fade over time – especially if you keep them in a storage unit. Heat and humidity are the enemies of print photos, which can cause them to discolor. If you haven’t looked at your photo prints recently, you might be surprised by how worn they are.
This is why its a good idea to make digitizing your photos one of the projects to do during this upcoming summer. If you put off the project for a few months (or even years) your memories might become too damaged to recover.
2. You Can Involve Your Kids in the Project
Another great reason to make digitizing your photos one of the projects to do during this upcoming summer is so you can get your kids to help you. A large photo-scanning project can be tedious if you want to sort through your prints and slides. Fortunately, your kids can help.
This is a great project if you have teens headed off to college because you can look back at how far they have come since their toddler years. Younger kids who grew up in the smartphone era might be fascinated by prints as an old form of technology. They can look at your photos from decades past and learn more about your history.
This is also a great project to connect kids to their family members. You can dig up photos and videos of aunts, uncles, grandparents, and other relatives to deepen your kids’ emotional connections to their families. This project might help your kids cherish their older loved ones while they are still around.
3. Scanning Photos Can Help With Decluttering
Many parents use the summer break to clean and organize their homes. This is a great time to introduce age-appropriate chores to kids, like asking your toddlers to pick up their toys and teaching kindergarten-age kids how to clear dishes from the table.
Decluttering is a great way to show kids how to keep a neat room while teaching them the benefits of helping others. If your kids are growing quickly out of clothes, you can find items to donate to your local church or community thrift shop. Kids can also donate toys they no longer play with and books they are too advanced to read. This process teaches them how to help the less fortunate while taking pride in their clean spaces.
If you make digitizing your photos one of the projects on your to-do list this summer, you might be surprised by how much space you free up in your home. Some families have several boxes of photos, videos, slides, and other media that take up entire closets or sections of the basement. This is particularly true if you have bulky photo albums that only hold a few dozen photos.
Add photo digitization to your cleaning schedule and see how much room you open up in your home.
4. You Don’t Have to Scan Photos On Your Own
If you must digitize your photos this summer, know you don’t have to take on this project alone. Some people invest in digital scanning apps that only handle one photo at a time. Instead, you can ship your photos to our Atlanta-based headquarters and ask us to digitize them.
The biggest part of this project is organizing your memories in a way that is easy to find later. Some people sort their photos by year and save them in clearly-labeled files. Other customers organize their prints by different life events (weddings, graduations, births, etc.) so they can look through them later.
Once the digitization project is complete, we will return your analog memories. You will have both your digital scans and original prints to look over whenever you want.
5. It’s a Great Project When You Are Stuck Inside
While summer days can be fun and packed full of outdoor events, there might be times when your kids can’t go outside. Heatwaves can be dangerous for adults and children, so your family must spend the hottest parts of the day inside. Summer rainstorms can also cancel your plans to go hiking or play at your nearby park.
Just because you want to prioritize digitizing your photos as one of your to-do projects this summer doesn’t mean you need to cancel your other plans. Wait for a rainy day, and then break out your old memories. You can also use this project as a fun distraction in the air conditioning when it’s too hot to play outside safely.
Take Steps to Digitize Your Photos this Summer
You don’t have to turn photo digitization into a major project that takes several weeks. Spend a rainy day searching for old memories and sorting through them. Decide which prints you want to digitize and which ones you no longer need. Then pack up your photos and ship them to us. We strive to digitize and return your photos within ten business days.
Start your order with Memory Fortress so we know to expect your photos. We only require $29 to begin the process. You won’t regret this fun summer project that can help you declutter your home while protecting your precious memories.