Fixing faded colour without overdoing it

Old photos are fragile in more ways than one. The paper fades, the colours shift and the people who knew who was in them grow fewer every year. Getting them scanned and labelled is a job worth doing now.

Here are the photos that made it into the book. Tap any of them to see it larger.

Keep it simple

Do not aim for perfection. A good-enough scan with the right caption beats a perfect scan of a stranger.

Start with the photos that only one person can still name. Everything else can wait.

• Leave the cover for last
• Write a few words beside the best ones
• Pick a fixed day each month

What we got wrong

Quiet months are worth printing too. A month with no trips and no birthdays often turns into the book people return to, because it shows what ordinary life looked like before it changed.

Take one photo before the moment and one after. The before and after often say more than the moment itself.

The book comes, and for one evening nobody looks at their phone.

Marcus, father of three

Make it a habit

Make a cup of tea, sit somewhere comfortable and put the phone on do-not-disturb. The job goes faster when it does not compete with messages.

Print sizes matter less than you think. A small photo surrounded by white space can feel more special than one stretched to fill the page.

Quick tip: star photos on your phone as you take them. Picking takes half the time at the end of the month.

When to stop

If you miss a month, do not try to catch up all at once. Start again with this month and fill the gap later if you feel like it.

A good caption answers the question someone will ask in twenty years. Who is that? Where were we? Why is everyone wet? Write the answer while you still know it, even if it feels too obvious to bother with today.

• Write a few words beside the best ones
• Include at least one place, not just faces
• Hand the camera to someone else

What to look for

Be generous on the first pass. You are not deciding what goes in the book yet, only what is definitely out.

When a month has a big event in it, such as a wedding or a first day at school, let it take over. There is no rule that says every week needs equal space. The book should feel like the month felt.

The book comes, and for one evening nobody looks at their phone.

Marcus, father of three

Why it works

Hand the phone to someone else at least once a month. It is the only way the photographer gets into the book.

Leave a little space. Not every page needs to be full, and an empty corner gives the eye somewhere to rest.

Quick tip: star photos on your phone as you take them. Picking takes half the time at the end of the month.

One more thing

On the second pass, look for variety. A month of the same room and the same faces feels flat, even if each photo is lovely on its own.

Do not wait for a special occasion. The ordinary weeks are the ones people forget, and the ones they most want to see again.

• Back up before deleting anything
• Pick a fixed day each month
• Write a few words beside the best ones

Try it this month

Ask someone else to look at your shortlist. They will spot the photo you were about to drop and the one you only kept out of habit.

Try not to edit every photo. A little brightening is fine, but heavy filters date quickly and make a year of books look uneven when they sit together on a shelf. Let the light of the day show.

We don’t take more photos than we used to. We just look at them now.

Ana, a reader since the first year

Start with what you already have

Back up before you delete anything. It takes a minute and removes the fear that stops people from clearing out at all.