Scanning a shoebox of prints in one weekend

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.

The clip below is what we put on while sorting. It runs long enough to get through a month of photos.

What we got wrong

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.

• Back up before deleting anything
• Include at least one place, not just faces
• Star photos as you take them

One more thing

Keep the rejected photos somewhere safe for a while. Tastes change, and a picture you passed over may be the one you want next year.

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.

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

Marcus, father of three

Start with what you already have

Think about how the photos sit next to each other. Two busy pictures side by side can fight; a busy one beside a quiet one usually works.

Some readers keep a short list of rules on a sticky note beside the computer. Ours says: faces first, then places, then anything that made us laugh. It is not scientific, but it stops the session turning into an evening of second-guessing.

Before you start: make sure your phone is backed up. Deleting is easier when nothing can be lost.

When to stop

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

If you have too many photos of one day, that day probably mattered. Give it a spread of its own rather than cutting it down to one.

• Keep one photo per day at most
• Hand the camera to someone else
• Star photos as you take them

Try it this month

Do not forget the in-between moments: the car park before the party, the coats piled on a chair, the walk home in the dark. They are the parts of a day that nobody photographs on purpose and everybody recognises straight away.

Keep a note of what happened that month as you go. A few words beside a photo are worth far more than you expect a year later.

My mum reads the captions more than she looks at the pictures.

Leila, who writes every caption by hand

Why it works

Keep the phone charged and the lens clean on days you expect to matter. It sounds small, but a flat battery or a smudged lens has cost more good pictures than any missing piece of equipment.

It helps to know what the book is for before you start. A book for grandparents wants faces and clear captions. A book for yourself can hold the odd corner of the garden, the shadow on the wall and the plate of food that only makes sense to you.

Before you start: make sure your phone is backed up. Deleting is easier when nothing can be lost.

Keep it simple

Faces matter, but so do places. Include at least one picture of the room, the street or the view where the month happened.

Most people find the first month the hardest. You are learning what you like, and every photo feels important. By the third month you will notice yourself moving faster, trusting your first reaction and spending your time on the handful of close calls instead of on every single picture.

• Keep one photo per day at most
• Pick a fixed day each month
• Leave the cover for last

A few small rules

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.

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

Picking is a skill. Like any skill, it gets faster.

Priya Nair, Paperleaf print room

Make it a habit

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.

Look back at last year’s book before you start this month’s. It reminds you what you enjoyed seeing again and what you skipped past, which makes this month’s choices quicker and kinder.

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

What to look for

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.

Set aside a fixed time for it. The last Sunday of the month works for a lot of readers because the week is quiet and the month is complete.

• Hand the camera to someone else
• Write a few words beside the best ones
• Back up before deleting anything

What we got wrong

If two photos are nearly the same, keep the one where someone is doing something. A raised hand, a turned head or a half-finished sentence gives a picture life that a perfectly still pose rarely has, even when the still one is technically better.

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

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

Ana, a reader since the first year

One more thing

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

Try to include everyone. It is easy to end up with a book full of the children and none of the person holding the camera.

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

Start with what you already have

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.

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.

• Write a few words beside the best ones
• Include at least one place, not just faces
• Back up before deleting anything