Bring memories and not piles of albums

Digitising old pictures and restoring colour to faded photography is a great way to give new life to treasured memories.

Photography has come a long way from the days you were limited to a 24 or 36-frame roll of film.

Today everyone carries a camera on their mobile phone (and many of the younger generation are all too ready to photograph every occasion – including lunch).

While it’s lovely to sit down with your family, open the photo albums, and remember those special occasions, there are some very real advantages in turning those photographs into electronic media.

It takes up less space

Scanning photographs reduces the number of physical photo albums you have. Those precious memories are safely stored on a digital media box or computer hard drive, and you’ve gained more space in your new home.

Remember, back up those photographs online through cloud storage solutions such as Dropbox or Google Drive. You can give other members of the family access to these images which they can also enjoy at any time.

One of the advantages of digitising photographs is being able to see the photos on a large computer monitor or your television which adds an extra dimension to experiencing wonderful memories.

Preserve precious memories

Don’t despair if some of your photographs are faded, scratched or torn. There are ways to restore the image and, if you’re tech savvy, you can even do it yourself at home. There are many powerful computer programs for both professional and home use that employ Artificial Intelligence.

For more information: bit.ly/3XyplSj

Get crafty

Do you enjoy crafts and scrapbooking? A new print of an old photograph can be used in scrapbooking or turned into a personalised birthday or anniversary card.

What about video?

Moving to a Living Gems resort is the perfect time to digitise video cassettes and home movies – especially when so few of us have VCRs to play them on anymore. Converting family home movies to a digital format takes up much less space and can preserve precious memories before the media degrades.

There are companies that offer this as a paid service. However, it is something you can do for yourself, though it will require an investment of time and equipment, such as video capture recorder, software and SD cards to store the video.