Do not try to remove your photographs from the album as this could cause them to be un-repairable. You could tear, rip or bend them trying to un-stick them from the pages. If they are stained by the glue, particularly from the self cling kind of album they may also have a pattern on them. The adhesive from the clear page that lays over the top of the photos, to hold them in place sometimes appears in diagonal lines. A line of glue then a space and this repeats, it is this repeat pattern of glue that ends up stuck to your photographs, staining them and causing damage to the emulsion. It not something that can be easily removed and best not attempted at all. It is best to get a photo repair and have them professionally restored.

Fortunately you do not even have to part with your photos in order to have them repaired. When it comes to photo repairs you can scan in an image from a print, slide or negative and your scanning software probably does it all for you, its simple you just hit the go button and the job is done. However it is best to check to the settings within the software to see how the software is saving your image? or if it gives you any options to alter the way the file is saved or scanned? Saving without compression or little compression is the best way to preserve detail in your image. A JPEG file is a lossy format, or a format where data is discarded in order to save space when saving. The higher the compression the more data is thrown away and the less detail there will be in your image.

There is no excuse these days, when hard disks are so very cheap to save your image with any other setting other than the best. It might be worth examining the software the came with your scanner and check that you do have the option to change the way it saves and what format it saves your images in. Phrases to look for in the manual or software settings are, best photo setting or the lowest compression, lossless format or large file size. You get the idea but do look for the top setting.

If you use a low setting you will get blocks where the JPEG algorithm splits up the photo into small portions in order to save it, the more data that is thrown away the more blocks there are visible. When this happens across a detailed section of the image the detail is lost, blocks meet and slurring of colours and details occur. This is called JPEG artefacts. It is these artefacts we do not want when our software takes over and saves our images for us.

In order for a restoration or photo repair to be carried out to a high standard then a highly compressed file must be avoided! Once you have a decent scan and a good quality file email to a photo restoration company for a quality photo repair.