Preserving Photos onboard

[fbchristo]

Hi All-

Well we are one step closer to moving aboard. The kids are out and somewhat situated, the house is under contract, the boat search has begun in ernest, my papers are filed to retire in 402 days, and the dog is 17 and can't hang on for ever. We are also in the process of culling down 33 years together. Step one is to move to an apartment going from a 3,800 square foot house to about 900 square feet. Part of this is selling most of our lives thus far to the walls (date is set 5-19 for estate sale) but there are some things we just don't want to live without once we move offshore. For most of our photos we plan to scan them in and store them on various devices one being in our safe-deposit box back onshore, but for those we want to display in our soon to be new floating home I am looking for advice on the best/most water proof/resistant frames or techniques you-all out there have used that you would recommend.

Thanks in advance and looking forward to joining the fraternity in a few short months!

Fred

Fred & Jo's Sailing Adventure

[xymotic]

on my last boat, I picked up a digital frame @ Costco for $80 or so.

It's not waterproof, and not safe,, but who cares!? let it die if it wants to die. Keep actual originals somewhere safe, and the digital fram is pretty cool, allows you to enjoy ALL of your pictures and was quite a conversation starter... and works on 12v.

[wingNwing]

I've been curious about xymotic's idea. For now, we don't worry about the "best" "waterproof" storage. Just store the original safely on land, keep digital copies, print what you want to display, and if water ruins it, print another one.

The other thing to be mindful of is scale - onboard you are closer to the walls and only have limited display space. In many cases, a 5x7 print, and correspondingly inexpensive frame, is adequate for family pix.

[barnakiel]

We keep ours on the hard drives.

The ones from the pre-digital era we keep them in airtight/lighttight boxes in dry storage on land.

b.

[Jane.Joy]

We used ScanMyPhotos for most of our pics and highly recommend them. Had to do some ourselves, because they do it by machine so any pics that have a weird backing or shape won't go. Very tedious. We scanned lots of "scrapbook" stuff too. When we got on the boat, we scanned ALL manuals and boat paperwork. Did I say tedious? But now I digress.

Love the idea of getting the digital picture frame, as a previous poster recommended. Much less expensive than a really good UV-resistant frame-job, and since you don't have your boat yet, let me warn you that the number of places available for displaying photos might be more limited than you would think (even on a catamaran!).

I looked at your blog and will be waiting for more entries. Couldn't figure out how to get subscribed (I use google reader) but that might be a problem on my end. (It might be the "I'm an idiot" problem - it's hard to tell, with tech. stuff.) Anyway, congratulations on this new chapter!

[zeehag]

my pictures are in my puters except for 2 i have on display inside boat--not well preserved but they are visible and haven't died in over 5 years.

[hellosailor]

Fred-
The "california floater" kind of frames are probably the safest. That's a shallow plastic box, you put the picture in facing out the bottom, put a backer behind it, and it sits an inch proud from the wall. I'd say safest because it keeps the picture further away from the surface it is mounted on, harder to get it moist, and the rest of the "frame" is a one-piece sealed box.

But unless you are carrying the family daguerrotypes onboard...I wouldn't worry. Get good quality digital scans made, get prints for what you want, but DO look at the digital picture frames. You can plug in a $30 memory card and have literally thousands of pictures displaying and cycling through, instead of being buried in a box. Video, too. i know, that needs power...so you have copies made from the ones you want to see every day, and hang the copies, and if they get wet? No big deal, print new copies.

The big trick is having good quality scans made. It really can pay to buy a decent scanner and DIY, because high-resolution scans in lossless quality are not cheap. The cheap ones often are a bit off-level, or have some lint, etc. These days, a high qaulity scanner is not expensive. Even the ones on the all-in-one machines can be pretty damned good--and they'll make a pretty good print for you if that's the one you want.
BTW, most of the flat-screen tvs on the market today can take a USB stick or hard drive and then simply choose it from a menu to play all the pictures on it. No special digital picture frame needed, so if you want to scan all the family pictures, and pass a copy on to other family members...real easy.

[fbchristo]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I have a BIG box full of photos, school programs, hand made cards etc. to scan over the next several months and the digital frame seems to be a good option for everything and keep a few real select pix's with other documents on land in the safe deposits box. Although a few will make it onboard somehow. Having worked for the pat 30+ hers as an artist/designer/photographer I have a lot to archive. Now to figure how to get my wife's long-arm quilting machine onboard!

Jane, don't know why the blog won't let you subscribe, I barely know how to post to it.

Fred

[maytrix]

I agree with scanning them all. Then you never have to worry about them - just be sure they are backed up online or off the boat - I use Online Data Backup & Storage – CrashPlan – Backup Software, Disaster Recovery and it's great.

For those you want to display, either go with a digital frame and display a lot or print out a few of the scans. With the right scanner, quality should be the same.

It's not inexpensive, but I can highly recommend the Fujitsu Scansnap 1500 scanner. I scan in everything - bills, important documents..etc. I shred the originals (unless they are required, like an auto title...etc) and always have the documents available on my computer and can even restore them to my phone or another computer - done this a few times actually.

Living on land still, but would apply this to living on the boat as well.

[Cotemar]

fbchristo,

Just put all your pictures on an iPad.
We have 15,000 pictures on our iPad3. Kids love to look at them when on board with friends.

I just take my iPad3 with an iPad Ram mount with suction cup.

1) Memory Map for Navigation with tracks, waypoints & anchor alarm
2) Navionics for tides and currents
3) marinetraffic for AIS traffic
4) Intellicast HD for location based weather, National weather center for storm info
5) Has internet, WiFi or 4G cellular
6) e-mail
7) Has a good camera and Video / movie recorder
8) CNN news
9) All my Contacts and emergency numbers
10) Voice to type e-mail and notes
11) All Boat manuals loaded as pdf’s
12) Has all my personal music
13) Keeps all my favorite books
14) Keeps all my appointments
15) Holds all my 15,000 photo’s
16) Make phone call’s using MajicJack, TalkFree

[sarafina]

Load copies of photos in a digital frame. Get a fair sized one, the enjoyment you will get is worth a little extra bulkhead space. Set the flip to a slow speed so the pictures remain up a bit.

Hot laminate any really cherished pics you want to frame and hang. That keeps them pretty well dry and if you spray mount the laminated pic to a firm back board you can skip glass or plexiglas on the face of it. Makes it lighter to hang and less breakable.

We have hundreds of pics on the digital frame that sits in the salon shelf. It would be easily stowed when under way, or it could be wall mounted also.

PS do not laminate the originals!

[Jane.Joy]

We have the Fujitsu Scansnap 1500 scanner too - it's awesome. Very small, so it's easy to tuck away in a locker. We have an "inbox" and when it gets full we get the scanner out - almost ALL paper gets thrown out.

[impi]

Originally Posted by Cotemar

fbchristo,

Just put all your pictures on an iPad.
We have 15,000 pictures on our iPad3. Kids love to look at them when on board with friends.

I just take my iPad3 with an iPad Ram mount with suction cup.

1) Memory Map for Navigation with tracks, waypoints & anchor alarm
2) Navionics for tides and currents
3) marinetraffic for AIS traffic
4) Intellicast HD for location based weather, National weather center for storm info
5) Has internet, WiFi or 4G cellular
6) e-mail
7) Has a good camera and Video / movie recorder
8) CNN news
9) All my Contacts and emergency numbers
10) Voice to type e-mail and notes
11) All Boat manuals loaded as pdf’s
12) Has all my personal music
13) Keeps all my favorite books
14) Keeps all my appointments
15) Holds all my 15,000 photo’s
16) Make phone call’s using MajicJack, TalkFree

I am impressed

[hellosailor]

Pretty much any Smartphone or tablet can do what the iPad does, although it does those things very well. Just don't put all your eggs in one basket, if you have no backups that iPad can be very attractive to sticky fingers--and then everything is gone.

We also lock (password protect) and encrypt, because while losing it all would be bad, having someone with sticky fingers having your phone book and access to other things, could be worse.

There's a long-standing scam cruisers may not know about, folks in retirement areas routinely get phone calls along the lines of "Hello, this is the --- municipal hospital, your grandson gave us your number to call. he's been in a minor car accident but we do not have the faciltiies, he needs air transport, can you wire ten thousand dollars to western union at...."

Mostly this is done when college students are on break. But for a cruiser? Well, if you're out cruising, the timing is right, you're not home.

Protect your information, some clever crook is always figuring out better ways to get and use it.