How to Convert Traditional Scrapbooks to Digital Books

It's pretty amazing that we now have the capability to digitize an old scrapbook!  Isn't it?  Something that used to be a one-of-a-kind object can be duplicated.  

This can come in handy for several reasons.  Maybe you want to have multiple copies to share.  Maybe you want downsize and take some of the bulk out of old scrapbooks.  Maybe your scrapbooks are so old they're on magnetized pages from the 60s or 70s (which are acidic and eating away at your photos as we speak) and need to be rescued.  

Whatever the reason, if you have an old photo album or traditional scrapbook that you would like to digitize, you definitely want to do it with care.  

NOTE:  When I say "digital book," I really mean a book with a digital version that you print.  I know some people stick with digital-only versions, but photo experts maintain that a printed, hard-copy version is still one of the best ways to preserve photos and memories.  A digital, shareable backup is smart, too.

In my experience, Forever is the best place to do it.  That's because their digitizing services are rated highest in both quality and customer satisfaction, and because the quality of their print products is the best in the industry (including nearly indestructible spine bindings).  

NOTE:  I am a Forever affiliate (a decision I made because I love it so much), so you will find affiliate links in this post, from which I earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no extra cost to you.

So, if you've been looking for a high-quality way to convert your traditional scrapbooks or old photo albums to digital books, you've come to the right place! 

There are two parts to converting a traditional scrapbook to digital books, so let's get right to it.

FIRST, DIGITIZE

Digitizing your scrapbook pages means having them scanned. You can certainly do this on your own if you like. Be sure you use a high-quality flatbed scanner, saving your images at a minimum of 300dpi resolution as JPG (or JPEG) files. Be sure the glass on the scanner is free from lint, smudges, etc., for the best scan, and make sure your pages aren't dusty. Be sure to set aside some scanning time on your calendar, too.

If you'd like to save time AND let the pros dust your pages (and remove them from the book, if needed) and use their top-quality equipment and skills, I definitely recommend Forever Digitization because I've used and loved them multiple times. They actually have the highest rating on Trustpilot (an independent platform for business reviews), too. Plus, security is an enormous deal:

You can see how the Forever Box works at this quick video showing you the basics, or just scan this QR code to watch.

For more details beyond that quick, 3-minute introduction, I made this video for you.

By the way, if your book is already a digital PDF, you don't need this digitizing step to print your old book, but you do need to convert the PDF file to individual JPG files (one per page).  This is an easy, free resource for converting PDFs to JPGs.  When you convert, select the best quality (300dpi or above).

SECOND, UPLOAD AND PRINT

Now you're ready to upload the scans (or the JPGs you converted from the PDF) and put each page into a book page.  You can do this easily with Forever using AutoPrint, an auto-fill method of creating the book.  The pages get placed automatically for you, and then you can adjust as you like before submitting it for professional printing.  

There's an easy step-by-step guide here, too!!

Note:  All of the designs you'll see in Forever's Create & Print platform are free to use.  The ones labeled "AutoBook" or "Make it fast" are the AutoPrint templates that make it easy to convert your traditional scrapbooks to digital books.  The other templates you'll see just don't auto-fill, but if you'd rather place pages one at a time yourself, you'll just need to find a template with "full bleed" pages, meaning there's no border around it, so that your whole scrapbook page can fill the whole book page.  I can help you find those non-AutoPrint full-bleed page templates if you like--just reach out.

I was so happy when the home office at Forever made this 13-minute tutorial video, "Traditional Albums to Digital Books," walking us right through these steps! 

The software programs you're seeing here are free and available to you right from your Forever account (which is free, too). Get started here.

And, yes, you can make brand new digital books at Forever, too!

THAT'S IT!

Follow the DIGITIZE and UPLOAD & PRINT steps, and you've got an old, traditional scrapbook saved digitally.  With Forever, you can share it digitally, too, with a simple link, and you can print it (and re-print it) to share with as many people as you'd like, too.

I'd love to see your end result--share photos with Photo & Story Treasures Fans, our Facebook group.  Join at that link and then show us photos or even a video of your new digital book so we can celebrate together.

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Solve Your Photo Problems Once and For All with a Forever Gathering

Nike said it best:  Just do it.  

If you've got photo problems, I promise you that it's way past time to solve them.  So let's just do it!  You're just about to feel SO much better!

The biggest photo problems I hear people talk about are organization (including knowing where photos even are) and knowing what to do with them (store them digitally? preserve them in print?)

Today I'm going to teach you how to solve your photo problems once and for all in three do-able steps.

And, as a bonus, if you prefer, you can skip steps 1 and 2 and do everything at the same time in step 3--I'll help!  

Step 1: Learn a Little About Photo Organization

With so many digital photos floating around these days, it can be easy to be overwhelmed, but it can also be easy to not even know where all your photos even are.  You may have some on your phone, some older ones on a flash drive, and maybe some even print photos in boxes or old photo albums.

So, in order to solve your photo problems once and for all, learn a little about photo organization.  Don't DO anything yet, just learn.  Choose one of these videos to watch (or you're welcome to watch both).

This is part of the photo organization & preservation class I taught a couple of years ago.  The main meat of the video is a little less than 30 minutes, but there's some additional Q&A recorded at the end as well which you can choose to skip or watch.

That video showed some basic tips and organizational tools for organizing on a computer, along with a lot of other resources.  This is my favorite way to organize my photos in the cloud, not only because it's so simple (and has an app so I can access ALL my photos on my phone without having them actually saved there taking up space) but also because it's so unlike Google, Dropbox, etc., in terms of privacy, longevity, etc.

NOTE:  I am a Forever affiliate (a decision I made because I love it so much), so you will find affiliate links in this post, from which I earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no extra cost to you.

Step 2: Learn About Preserving Photos

Again, we're just learning here.  We'll start doing in the next step.

The first thing to know here is that there's a difference between storing and preserving photos.

I think about it this way:

• During the summer, you might store winter clothes somewhere that's out of the way so that you can have access to them when you want them.  
• To preserve something like a cell phone, you might put it in a protective case, keep it away from water, etc., so that it will last as long as possible while you're using it every day.  

When you're talking about photos, you really want to do both.  I think sometimes people assume that storing photos away somewhere in the cloud or on an external hard drive is preserving them.  Not necessarily.  

If they're shoved away in either a physical or a digital "box," they may be put away, but they're not kept alive.

Keep this in mind as you learn this advice from photo experts:

This advice is basically about not having all your proverbial eggs in one basket.  

Experts recommend storing photos 2 ways digitally (one onsite [at home] and one offsite [in the cloud]).  That way, if there's an emergency of any kind, from a fire to a simple water leak onto something electronic, you've got a backup.  

Experts also say we should store our photos in print. I assume this is because technology changes, you don't have to have electricity or a full battery in order to look at your photos in a book, etc.  But I believe that a book is the best way to preserve the memories behind the photo.  Without the details of the photo, its value dramatically reduced! 

Those photos, for example, mean nothing to you.  They carry a lot of meaning to me and my family. 

If you just have photos without details, your loved ones will look at your photos the same way you're looking at mine because they won't have any meaning behind them.

Next, learn all about preserving photos in 2 Digital Ways and 1 Print Way here.

Step 3: Get a Tribe at a Forever Gathering and Do What You've Learned with Your New Photo Circle

Now that you've learned about the two biggest photo problems out there, take what you've learned in steps 1 and 2 and identify your biggest memory-keeping problem.  What do you need to tackle first?  What is the biggest thing in your way?  

And if "not knowing where to start" is your biggest problem, that's OK, too!

Grab a scrap of paper right now and write down your biggest problem.  We're going to start there as we help you move to the doing part of solving your photo problems once and for all. 

Anything that seems like a big task is made easier with a friend.  Going on a daily walk or painting a room feels more do-able when you've got someone there doing it with you.

In almost 20 years now of coaching people on photo preservation and memory-keeping, I have learned that if you could do it on your own, you probably would have already done it.  There is a lot of power in both getting some help and getting a tribe.  

Here are 2 different options for you to consider here in this last step where you'll do what you've learned.  #1 is geared toward just getting help and #2 more toward getting a tribe.  Click each one for more information:

1. Master Memory-Keeping in 8 Doable Steps and/or How to Start a Photo-Preserving and Memory-Keeping Habit in 10 Minutes a Day and/or attend a Forever Gathering.
2. Get a personalized help with your biggest memory-keeping problem, and create a group you can work with moving forward at the same time.  Email me your biggest memory-keeping problem, the one you wrote down on the paper, at photoandstorytreasures@gmail.com and think about people you know who have photo problems, too.  Who do you know who would love getting some photo solutions, too?  We'll meet at a Forever Gathering to learn tools, tips, and strategies, and then you'll have a Photo Circle you can meet with regularly on your own so you can keep doing what you've learned!

We'll pick a date 4-6 weeks out that will give me some time to create a class personalized to your needs.  I teach these at no cost when at least 4 attendees are present (including you, the host).  I'll provide you with invitations to send to friends and family--and remember, since it's online, you can invite your old college roommate who lives on the other side of the country, too!

And as you may have noticed in the image above, inviting other people who begin using Forever as their memory-keeping tool (as I will introduce in the class) will give you a $20 coupon (for each person!).  The key is for me to provide each of your guests with your referral link, then once they make a purchase of any amount, you'll receive your coupon, which is good for 60 days.  

By the way, sometimes when I talk to people about "hosting" something, they start thinking about "parties" and "sales pitches."  My Forever Gatherings are sales-pitch-free.  Because:  ew.  (That's just not me.)

In addition to all those coupons, you even get a thank-you gift for hosting a Forever Gathering!

Choose the mug or the planner, and I'll mail them to you if you're not local to me!

Remember, hosting a Forever Gathering gives you and your friends personalized information and help to solve your photo problems once and for all.  Your friends become your Photo Circle.  You can get together regularly and work with friends to accomplish your goals and stay caught up!

Here's some additional information:

Once you've started your memory-keeping journey with friends, it's very easy to get together in-person or online for a monthly Girls Night or a weekly Lunch & Photos time.  This is your tribe.  You're all working and enjoying your photos, getting your photo problems solved once and for all!

It's brilliant.

Contact me for additional questions and to request the type of class you'd like me to teach. 

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Metadata: "Writing on the Back of" a Digital Photo

Metadata is a whole new world for anyone older than the internet.  Like me.  So if you'd like to learn a little more about what metadata is--and why you care--you have come to the right place.  

Although the meaning of the word "metadata" is technically "data about data," our focus here is how it's used with digital photos.  In that case, we can define metadata as the equivalent of "writing on the back of" a digital photo!  

You can read the basics of metadata for any file in general here but we'll focus on the two main kinds of metadata associated with a digital photo.

1. EXIF data is automatic and already part of the digital file (the digital photo) when it's created.
2. IPTC data is additional data, or information, that you add yourself.

EXIF Metadata Basics

EXIF metadata looks like this. When you take a photo with your phone or camera, your device automatically gives that photo a file name, such as IMG-1234. If you tap the information icon (an "i" with a circle around it) on your phone or after you've opened the digital photo on a PC, you can see more EXIF data such as the location where the photo was taken, the date it was taken, the camera information (if it was taken with a Kodak camera or an Apple 14 iPhone Pro), the size of the photo (4.4 MB, for example), etc. You can see that at the right in this image below.

A scanned photo's EXIF metadata is going to be off. Often, the "date taken" information is given as the date scanned, etc. You'd have to edit the EXIF data yourself to correct it.

You may be tempted to change the file name of a photo, but don't. Yes, IMG-1234 seems impersonal and nondescript, but a professional photo organizer I talked with recommends never changing the file name of a photo because keeping original file names is the easiest way to tell if you have duplicates.

Making your photo personal and descriptive by adding the real details of the photo--the reason that photo was taken--is where IPTC data comes in.

IPTC Metadata Basics

EXIF data is great and super useful. But this additional type of metadata is extra cool.

IPTC data is what you add to the photo yourself. For example, if you have this photo (above) with only EXIF metadata, you'll know the file name and the size of the photo and the date it was taken. That's it. And that's because this photo was taken with an old digital camera 15 years ago, so there's not metadata about the location of the photo. There's actually more metadata about the type of camera used to take this photo (it tells me a flash was not used) than there is about why this photo matters.

And that's why IPTC data is so important. I can add a description to the photo, such as "This photo was taken at Cannon Beach right outside Mo's. Bob is 2 and riding on Joe's shoulders. Sue is 7, and Max is 11. We had fun going..." I can tell you the story behind the photo.

IPTC data is whatever you want to add.

It's a lot like "writing on the back of" a digital photo.

Another form of IPTC data is tags. I might tag that photo "Oregon," "Cannon Beach," "Bob," "Sue," "Max," "Joe," "2008," "beach," or anything else I want. The capability to search tags helps you find a photo faster.

This little video shows you what that looks like:

Accessing Metadata for Your Photos

There are all kinds of programs where you can manage metadata. But an important thing to know is that most cloud storage platforms aren't particularly IPTC-friendly. If the photo ever leaves the platform--if you download it to your computer or email it to your mom--all that extra, meaningful information you've added is lost.

This is true for Google Photos, SmugMug, and Apple Photos, among others. In fact, Apple Photos changes how they handle metadata so frequently that they say they are "not IPTC compliant."

I feel like that's pretty lousy for platforms that don't even guarantee your photos will be around for the next generation and charge you a monthly fee anyway.  

If you use Forever Storage, on the other hand, you are purchasing your cloud storage so you own it forever--it's actually meant to be passed down in the future. And the tags and descriptions you add to your photos and videos in Forever Storage become part of the photos' permanent metadata. When you download or share the photo, all that special IPTC metadata you've added is there in addition to the EXIF data we always have.

If you use Forever Storage as your cloud photo preservation service, the metadata (and other information about your photo file) looks like this:

In order to make sure you're downloading your metadata with the photos from your Forever Storage, all you have to do is set it up that way in your account:

1. Login to your Forever account.
2. Hover over the person icon at the upper right, then select "My Account" from the drop-down menu.  
3. Select "Preferences" at the left.  
4. Turn on "enable with metadata."  It takes more time to download your files this way, so you'll get a notification (a notification bell in your menu) when it's ready to download.  You'll also have an option to click the box "ask me every time" if you want to include metadata with some of your downloads but not everything. 

Not all programs can read all metadata, either, so if whatever program you're using on your computer or phone doesn't do it, there are options like these.

NOTE:  I am a Forever affiliate (a decision I made because I love it so much), so you will find affiliate links in this post, from which I earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no extra cost to you.

You really can tell the whole story behind a photo with metadata.  See?  (And I make a point to upload photos from my phone to my Forever Cloud Storage weekly--daily when I'm traveling--so that I can quickly type in all the details before I forget them.)  

See all that information under "description" I have circled in pink?  That's IPTC metadata I've added to my photo.  (And it stays with the photo when I download or share it since I added it in my Forever Cloud account.)

How to Always Have The Story Behind the Photos: Digitally and in Print

If you've been here a couple of times, you probably already know that photo experts recommend preserving photos and memories in 2 ways digitally and 1 in print.  Print remains one of the best ways to "store" photos, and you can include your memories right along with it in a book!

Plus, you don't need an expensive piece of technology like a phone or computer to access your photos when they're in a book.  And books are never low on battery.

Print is an excellent, highly-recommended way to make sure you always have the story behind the photo so that your photos are meaningful instead of just digital files.

digital scrap page from my 12x12 book created with Artisan software

If you're a fan of digital scrapbooking like I am, give Artisan a try.  If you're in the "who has time for that" camp, I definitely recommend the easy templates from Create & Print.  Both types are printed at the Forever Print Shop which provides the highest quality books in the industry (in papers, inks, and bindings).  Get started here.

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