Working with digital images

[Guest]

I placed several digital photos I had printed from my photo printer into "old-fashioned" photo albums with the plastic sleeves.  After a while, they were sticking to the plastic and had "spots" on them that were darker than the rest of the photos, looking almost like a water stain.  I did wait at least 24 hours before placing them in the albums.  Any sugestions?


^{Note: this message was posted on behalf of a Digicamhelp site visitor who sent the inquiry by email. The individual has been notified about the reply. We ask that all such inquiries be posted the Q&A Board.}

[Deb]

Hi there Guest,

Happy to hear from you! My guess is that there's a compatibility problem with the material your sleeves are made of (probably PVC) and the chemistry of your prints. Also, high humidity can cause the surface of the print to stick to the inside of the sleeve. I live in TN and humidity is something we have lots of.  

What I do is use non-PVC sleeves (known as archival preservers) with ink jet prints (and also to store film negatives in) and have not had any problems. These sleeves are designed to fit in a notebook and come in a vast assortment of pocket sizes (suitable for 4x6, 8x10, etc.).  You can buy them in packets of 25 or 100 sleeves from area photo shops. If you can't find them in your area, you can order them easily online.

Hope this helps you!
Deb

[ShutterbugGail]

Unfortunately, I don't think there is much you can do to remove the spotting on those digital photos. Hopefully, you saved originals of the image files and can reprint them.

As we all know through experience, the same thing can happen to prints developed from film. As Deb pointed out, humidity can really do a job on photos, as does direct sunlight and dampness. We all sure need to watch where we store our photo albums.