Most people have photo albums on their smartphones these days, but we’re talking about the old school analogue version: photos individually stuck into books with love and attention.

Many will have photo albums dedicated to a particular time in their lives, such as a wedding day or a baby book with all the firsts of childhood commemorated. Nowadays, there are plenty of companies that provide services and will put together a beautiful album for you.

Scrapbooking is popular too. A photo album becomes a crafter’s dream: accessorise endlessly and turn your photo albums into art.

However, there are downsides to scrapbooks and photo albums.

You can be forgiven for thinking that photo albums are a good way of preserving photos. But many are not made with preservation in mind. The best photo albums to preserve pictures are “archival photo albums”. Archival photo albums use acid-free materials and usually have individual sleeves for the photos. Archival boxes would be the even safer option for storing old photos safely.

You may be familiar with the commercially produced scrapbooks you can pick up in stationery and crafts shops. These commonly use adhesive pages and transparent plastic overlays that glue down the prints and hold them in place. The problem is that the glue can seriously damage the prints, not only by leaving marks but by speeding up the deterioration of the images as the chemicals on the surface emulsion interact. Photo albums that use adhesives should be avoided.

Keen scrapbookers also take great joy in a whole plethora of decorative additions that will add further chemicals and abrasive materials into the mix. Glitter, felt tips, pipe cleaners, dried flowers and coloured sticky tape – all these things will jazz up the look of your scrapbook but also create a hazardous environment for photographs.

Once your scrapbook is complete, it will be a joy to behold, a masterpiece of family memorabilia, but it will have an expiration date. Glues lose their “stickability” and prints start to slip away; glitter steadily scatters itself beyond the boundaries you set for it and finds its way into every nook and cranny, scratching the delicate surface of your photos.

So how to ensure your scrapbooks and photo albums stay “photo-ready” for decades of viewing pleasure? Digitise them.

EachMoment scans photo albums and scrapbooks and digitally recreates them in all their former glory. Digital editing undoes the damage of scratchy glitter and ripped adhesive, so that all the images appear as they once did. Our editing experts will do their best to conscientiously revive any compromised prints.

By scanning the entire page, all the decorative additions and handwritten annotations are preserved alongside the photos – so the hard work of the scrapbooker is being preserved too. Where the ink of biros and felt tips may fade over time too, scanning will keep that precious handwriting intact.

Every 2D and 3D addition is kept intact and becomes a fully digital scrapbook.

If your photo albums are of the more minimalist style, with each image spaced out and free of adornments, then we can scan photos as individuals instead of taking a full page scan.And if your photos have started to fall away from their protective housing, there is always our straightforward Photo Prints to Digital Service. Rather than sending us the entire photo album, you may be better off removing the prints at home and sending them separately. This will be more economical than sending the entire photo book in the post.