Treatment for Flood Damaged Photos

With the dramas of the Xmas 2010 floods, questions of how to treat flood damaged photos has arisen.
Following are some guidelines for helping to minimize the effect of flood damage.

The following procedures take time and patience and should not be rushed.

If in doubt, keep the wet prints wet and by sealing in a ziptop plastic bag and sending to Street's Imaging Services. Street's will examine the package and give you a quote on trying to recover and restore the photos. As the damage cannot be determined until the prints are inspected, Street's cannot quote until they are received. Although all care is taken, no responsibility can be taken for any further damage or if the photos cannot be successfully recovered and/or restored.

If the photos were made prior to around 1990, it is best to recover them as best as possible then copy and restore them and make new copies.
The reason is that older photos used a final bath of stabilizer to slow image deterioration and this will have been removed by the flood water.

If the original negatives are still available and survived the flood, take these to a professional lab or send to Street's to have new prints made.

If the original negatives are damaged by water and are stuck together, send them to Street's for specialist attention.
If the original negatives are not available please follow the guidelines below.

Photographic emulsions are fragile and become exceptionally vunurable to damage when wet. Take your time and be patient.

1. Photos have been under flood water and are still sopping wet.

The photos are stuck together in a block.

Transfer the photos to a container of clean water and rinse carefully with running clean water to remove excess dirt, mud etc. Treat with care as the emulsions will be soft and fragile.
After rinse water is clean, leave photos for 1 hour then separate the block carefully into smaller blocks.

Repeat this procedure until all photos are separated where possible.

If the photos in the centre of a block are only wet around the edges, it may be necessary to soak them for a longer period of time until they will separate. ( leave in clean water overnight.)
(If partially stuck photos areattempted to be separated before they are completely wet, the emulsion may rip away and stick to the back of the photo on top.)

Once all the photos that can be separated are separated, rinse again with clean water then place on clean towels or paper towels to dry. An excellent drying surface is a clean window fly screen placed on bricks to allow air flow all round the photos.

Once the photos are dry, scan the photos to make a digital backup file. Scan the file at 300 Pixels Per Inch to the same size as the original. (A good quality multi function fax/scan/copy machine will usually suffice. Remember, you are trying to save photos which would normally be lost forever.) Better still, send the photos to Street's for scanning and restoration and printing. It is amazing what we can do to restore damaged photos.

2. Photos have been in flood waters but have dried out and are stuck together.

As soon as possible, get the photos into a container of clean water and allow to soak, preferably overnight, until they are wet through again.

Then follow the procedure outlined in 1. above.

3. Photos are in a frame behind glass and are stuck to the glass.

Caution, Frame glass is thin and extremely easy to break.
Use protective goggles and heavy duty gloves.
If it is a large frame (say, 11x14" or larger), take it to a professional photographer or send it to Street's for restoration.

This is the most difficult situation as the emulsion "welds" itself to the glass. Frame glass is thin and extremely fragile.
If the photo has been properly framed with tape sealing the back of the frame follow as below.
Carefully clean the glass front of the frame.
If the photo looks OK (it may have some water marks but it may be generally OK), take it to a professional photographer and get them to copy the photograph as it is before attempting to go any further. (it is surprising how photos can be saved at this point.)
If there is a lot of mud and debris in the frame, try to carefully remove this by rinsing with slowly running water.
Do NOT attempt to pull the photo away from the glass as the emulsion will be left on the glass where it is stuck to the glass.
Take the photo to a professional photographer to be copied digitally and restored. Or send it to Street's for copy and restoration.

Alternately.

If the photo has been laminated prior to framing, the photo should easily come away from the glass allowing the photo to be washed in clean cold water, dried and be ready for reframing. Reputable professional photographers generally laminate prints which are to be framed.
It may be necessary to trim some of the edge of the print if it has been underwater for some days and water has entered the paper backing of the print.

4. Canvas prints damaged by Flood Water.

Canvas prints less than 10 years old.

If the canvas print has been made in the last 10 years, it is most likely an Ink Jet print printed on special canvas.
These canvas prints are usually coated with a protective lacquer which will respond to cleaning with clean water and a very soft sponge or cotton wool.
Treat the surface very carefully and only clean the back to get rid of the mud.
Do not use bleach or solvents on the back or front.
It is probably best to leave it on the stretcher frame to dry.

Canvas prints more than 10 years old.

If the canvas print is more than 10 years old, it is most likely a photograph which has had the emulsion stripped and bonded to artists canvas.
These canvasses are usually laminated or lacquered on the face.
If the canvas is stretched over a frame, carefully clean the back to get rid of the mud and clean the face.
Depending on the method of adhering the photo emulsion to the canvas, it is probably best to have the image copied and a new canvas print made.
Copying canvas prints may cause the original canvas texture to show but at least the photo will be recovered to some extent.

5. Prints in Albums.

For amateur prints in albums, the procedure will depend on the type of album.

Photocorner albums

Where the prints are in an album with photocorners, the main problem will be the photos sticking together face to face.
If the album has been totally immersed for some time, place it in a container of clean water and leave overnight.
Rinse and ease the album open very carefully. If the pages do not come apart easily, you may have to sacrifice some photos by trying to separate one stuck page to see the result. If the photos appear to be dry where they have stuck, it may be necessary to soak longer.
Take the photos out of the corners and try to separate the photos that are stuck together very carefully.
If one photo has the emulsion of the other stuck to it, you may not be able to recover any photos.
If the photo has stuck to the page opposite, soak the page overnight and try to remove it gently from the photo. If the fibres of the album page are stuck to the photo, they can be removed by very gently easing off with a cotton bud while the photo is under water.

Plastic sleeve albums.

Here the problem is similar to photos stuck to glass.
Use a sharp hobby knife to cut the plastic sleeve around the photo.
Test on one photo to see if the plastic comes away from the emulsion easily with out removing the emulsion from the photo. (Some plastic sleeves are treated with silicone to prevent sticking.)
If the sleeve comes away easily, treat the rest of the photos the same.
Wash the recovered photos ONE AT A TIME in clean water and allow to dry on clean towels or paper towels. (A clean window fly screen placed horizontally on bricks is a great drying surface.)
If the sleeve does not separate easily and the mud washes off the outside of the sleeve and the image is reasonable, scan the photo in the sleeve on a qulaity multi function fax/scan/copy device at 300 Pixels per Inch to the same size as the original. Send these scans to Street's and ask for a quote on restoring and reprinting.

Wedding albums.

If the album was shot by a Professional Photographer, contact the photographer to see if the files/negatives are available for a reprint of the album.
If you have the disk of images and it has been under flood water as well, clean the disk by rinsing in clean water to remove the mud. DO NOT USE abrasives of any kind on the disk.
Contact Street's to get the images reprinted.

Magazine style wedding albums

Magazine style wedding albums have photographs extending to the edge of the page and do not have matts.
If these have been submerged for some time, treating them will be similar to the photocorner albums as the photographs facing each other will tend to weld together unless they have been lacquered or laminated. Contact your album supplier for further information.

Matted style albums.

There is a chance that some pages will have sufficient separation due to the matting of the photos that the photos have not touched the opposite photo. If this is the case, try to ease the pages apart.
If the photos have touched, try dismantling the album to release the pages so they can be treated individually.
See the album supplier for further information.

Further Information.

If you require further information please email Street's with a full description of your problem.

Attach a few photos if possible.

Please read this disclaimer

This information is general in nature as specific circumstances are unknown. Photographic materials have changed markedly over the past 150 years or so and this information my not be suitable in any or all circumstances that may be encountered.

Street's Imaging Services Pty Ltd gives this information in good faith however does not and will not accept responsibility for loss or damage caused by following any or all of the above guidelines.

The procedures above should be treated as suggestions on how to try to recover what would otherwise be totally lost. Tests should be done before considering extensive treatments.