If you’re like most people, you have a collection of old photos all over your house. Some of them have been stored badly over the years, maybe in horrible old magnetic photo albums, or in places where they were exposed to heat, humidity or the sun. As we all know, photos really don’t respond well to bad storage conditions.

Because of how they were stored, they probably now are discolored and faded. Sometimes they take on a strange new color cast, and sometimes it’s just a lack of color that’s the problem.

If that’s the case, you do have a few options.
1. Pay for a service that does photo restorations, and do expect to pay plenty!
2. You could try to fix them yourself, using a sophisticated software program such as Adobe PhotoShop.
3. Or, third choice, do it yourself with one of the newest photo scanners. There are ones that do color corrections for you. The best part - it’s all automatic! All you do is press one button!

Some of the latest scanners, like the Epson 4870 come with a new technology that gives your photos amazing and instant color restorations. Easy Photo Fix from Epson is one such example. If you need a scanner, or if you’re about to make a heritage photo album, this is the technology to get. The whole process takes just a few clicks.

Here’s how to do it: Scan your photos, one by one. Place the photo on the scanner glass, upper right corner.

• First, because it is a photo we’re scanning, we select the Photo Option.
• Next, with the photo in place, select Preview to see what it would look like if it were to print it as it looks here.
• It’s done and we can see that its current condition looks pretty bad. Now for the magic: check off the little box that says “color restoration.”
• Immediately you see how much better it will look. Then you can choose to scan this version of the photo and save it.
• It’s done once the progress gauge reaches the end. Once it’s scanned, you can print it.

Even though it’s called color restoration, it works just as well with old black and white and even sepia toned photos. It’s the same process: you still click on “color restoration” and it enhances the intensity of the tones almost back to their original vibrancy.

Another thing is that it also enhances underwater photos. Often, photos taken underwater have a bluish cast, and it’s hard to distinguish one thing from another. The scanner removes the overall blue cast and seems to have given everything back more of its own individual color.
So before you go to all the trouble of creating a layout for your old photos, bring them back to life before you stick them to one page. Fix them first then print them onto archival scrapbook photo paper. So, even future generations will see them in their near-original condition.