Hi again - can I call you PS for short?  :-)
I worry about the folks who had their wedding recorded on VHS tape and
haven't rewound/played the tape on an annual basis to avoid bleed-through.
Same would apply to audio tapes, and also rumors about CDs deteriorating
over time. I dunno, but for me, give me the prints and negatives for
long term storage.

JMHO
Dick R.

<PunishSpammers@NOSPAM.com> wrote in message

Virtually no one would argue that digital should REPLACE your old prints,
but there is a compelling case to be made for scanning them and storing
multiple copies of the image files, preferably in geographically diverse
locations.  I am reminded of a genealogy society meeting, where one proud
woman declared that she had neatly scanned all her important family papers
and then shredded and discarded those "old" original copies . . . She was
obviously ill-informed and misguided, and she paid a price for her
ignorance.  Now all she has are images, not originals.

The archival CDs are admittedly NOT going to be suitable for very long-term
storage.  CDs will be supplanted by other types of media.  And image file
formats will eventually give way to newer formats.  And some of those
archive CDs may become unreadable in time due to physical deterioration.
But a compelling case can be made for at least attempting to create multiple
copies of those precious photographs in those old albums.

I am scanning, archiving, restoring and reprinting about 500 family prints,
that almost went into a landfill when an elderly relative's home was cleaned
out prior to being sold when she entered a nursing home.  A relative just
happened to spot two albums in a dumpster, pulled them out to have a look,
and discovered that they were photos of OUR family members, some dating to
the 1940s.  The albums were perilously close to being lost forever.  It was
pure coincidence that they were spotted at all.

Had there been scans available, at least new prints could have been made and
distributed to multiple family members, rather than running the risk of the
originals being discarded or lost in a disaster.  And, now that the images
are being digitized, I am able to make corrections for imperfect exposure,
and I can distribute the freshly-done prints to numerous family members for
their own use.  Most of the family has never even seen these photographs,
because they were locked up in the home of a single person all this time.
And the new prints I am going to be making will, themselves, hold the
promise of being archival, if they are cared for by their new owners.  It is
a win-win arrangement.

Digitizing may not be a 100% perfect solution, but as long as it is
implemented as an additional layer of protection, over and above that of
keeping and protecting the originals, I see no reason why anyone should
object to it.