Industry
Part of How to sequence a family photograph project from triage to storage
Learning photograph care, and judging a lab's work
Where to learn photograph preservation without naming studios, plus the inspection routine that tells you whether a copying job came back good enough.
What to take away
- Studios and classes for photograph care are named below. None were assessed for this page, and a directory goes out of date within a year, so call before you travel.
- Published institutional guides are the free curriculum, organized by object type rather than course.
- Judge a lab's work by inspecting a small paid test batch, not by its website.
- Have the inspection done by someone who is not the person who did the copying.
Studios and classes worth finding
Naming a studio means pointing to a real program, not endorsing it. Labs open, close and change hands quickly. None of the providers below were contacted, visited or assessed for this page. Confirm dates, fees and prerequisites by phone or on the provider's site.
| Provider | What it offers | Who it suits | Cost and location |
|---|---|---|---|
| Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) | Workshops and free webinars on photograph preservation, plus free preservation leaflets | Staff at small museums, historical societies, genealogists | Andover, Massachusetts; workshops typically $95 to $200, some webinars free |
| Image Permanence Institute (IPI) at Rochester Institute of Technology | Workshops on identifying photographic prints and preserving photographic materials; develops the Photographic Activity Test | Archivists, collection managers, conservators | Rochester, New York; workshop fees typically $200 to $500 |
| George Eastman Museum | Public workshops and a graduate program in photographic preservation and collections management | Emerging professionals, collectors, advanced hobbyists | Rochester, New York; workshop fees vary, graduate tuition set by the university |
| Society of American Archivists (SAA) | Online courses including Preservation of Photographic Materials | Archivists, librarians, records managers | Online; courses typically $200 to $300 |
| Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts (CCAHA) | Workshops on caring for photographs and photographic collections | Museum and historical society staff | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; workshop fees typically $50 to $150 |
| Library of Congress Preservation Directorate | Free guides and occasional workshops on care, handling and storage of photographs | General public, librarians, archivists | Washington, DC; free |
| Getty Conservation Institute | Free online resources and workshops on photograph conservation | Conservators, advanced practitioners | Los Angeles, California; free publications, workshop fees vary |
The free curriculum is still the fastest start.
The free curriculum
Start with guides published by libraries and conservation bodies, not courses.
Yale University Library's handouts and guides arranged by object is a good index of what exists. It is organized by material: separate sections cover artwork, audio and visual media, books, digital files and photos. Other sections cover documents and papers, furniture and objects, and it also points to published leaflets from conservation organizations for each.
That structure is the useful part. Personal collections are mixed, and advice that is organized by object type is the only kind you can apply to a specific box.
Work through it in this order:
Order to work through guides
- Largest material group first
- Emergency preparedness before you need it
- Digital section once copying starts
- Everything else as it comes up
Finding local instruction
Local training exists and is worth seeking, but look for it by institution rather than by search term.
State and county archives, university library preservation departments, historical societies and public library systems all run occasional workshops on family collections. And they are usually free or close to it.
Ask by telephone what they run and when, because little is published far in advance.
For anything involving film, tape or discs, start with the reading list. Michigan State University Libraries' guide to general resources for audiovisual preservation collects books, courses and web resources for exactly this.
It includes a self-study textbook that covers the core topics of caring for and reformatting audiovisual collections. It also includes a practical volume for archivists who opened a box, failed to recognize the format, and had no idea whether it held picture or sound. That second description fits most people holding a shoebox of home movies.
Testing a lab
Judge any copying service on a paid test batch of ten or fifteen items covering your hardest formats, then inspect what comes back properly.
Lab test batch inspection
- Focus and sharpness across whole frame
- Tonal rangehighlight and shadow detail
- Color neutralitygray areas stay gray
- Framingfull item including borders
- Physical returnoriginals in own enclosures
Some proportion of any copying job comes back unusable, so agree in advance who pays for reshoots and who decides. Then inspect properly rather than glancing at thumbnails, and get a second pair of eyes that is not the person who did the copying.
| Check | What you are looking for |
|---|---|
| Focus and sharpness | Across the whole frame, not just the center |
| Tonal range | Highlight and shadow detail that exists in the original |
| Color neutrality | Gray areas that are gray, not warm or blue |
| Framing | Full item including borders and any studio imprint |
| Physical return | Originals back in their own enclosures, undamaged |
| Resolution and file format | Enough pixels for your intended use, in a format you can open without the lab |
| Metadata | File names or sidecar notes that link each file to the original |
The last row is not a small point. Ask in writing how originals will be housed while they are out of your hands.
Our plan for a photograph collection covers what to copy and in what order, and the notes on how archives set copying priorities cover the scoring that decides which batch goes out first.
