In some ways learning about photographic preservation can be a bit frustrating. It can also actually be harmful rather than helpful to your photographs. After a little study a person commonly becomes horrified at all the things they have been doing wrong. Sometimes, they will over-react and quickly go do something harmful, such as handle all their negatives to look for damage!

Remember, it's almost never too late to begin preserving your old photos. Please decide right now that you won't do anything to your photographs until you have a preservation plan. If you don't understand, ask before you experiment.

Unless your photographs were just in a flood or fire, you have a few weeks and months to carefully produce your own personally-tailored plan for photographic preservation. This plan should be personal enough to adapt to your own needs, including time and budget limitations. If you get frustrated at how slowly your plan progresses, keep in mind that you did not build up your photographic treasures all at once, and you may not be able to take all the preservation steps at once either.