It is a great idea to keep your pictures in a photo album whether it is for your personal use, for sharing or display. Unfortunately not all photo albums are created equal. Here are some pros and cons of the various types of photo albums to help you choose the best way to keep your precious photos safe and well preserved.
Plastic pocket albums are convenient because you can pop the photo into the pocket without adhesives or glues. The photos, however, can fall out of the pocket and the plastic can dry out and crack. What most people don't realize is that some plastic pocket albums are made of PVC and can actually damage or destroy your pictures. Over time PVC will generate acids which will fade your photo. There are plastic pocket albums that are made of acid free material and are safe for your photos, but you need to make sure you are using the correct plastic pocket album.
Paper page albums these also need to be made of acid free paper because acid will eventually destroy your photo. You can look for things like acid free, archival quality or lignin free paper. You also need to find a way to secure the picture to the page. Some adhesives will get extremely sticky over time and can tear your picture. Self stick pages are definitely to be avoided because they can stain your image, become super sticky and eventually destroy your picture. When you use stick on corners on paper page photo albums the corners need to pass a standard for permanent paper, look for ANSI/NISO 738.48. The sick on corners can still dry out and need to be positioned accurately to keep your photos from falling out of the album
Photo Books are the modern option! With photo books, you can preserve your photos beautifully for years. Photo books are created from your digital images and printed with your story and captions on high quality paper. You can create photo books for displaying your photos and for gift giving. Photo books have many advantages because you can create custom photo books without worrying about PVC, your pictures won't fall out of the album and you will have no worries about your images being damaged over the long term.
The choice is now clear! You can now take advantage of the improvements and use photo books to store, display and preserve your photos for years.
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