Old photos go digital

Terri Matern’s family history was imprisoned on shelves, in teetering stacks bound with rubber bands, filling dozens of plastic bins, boxes and albums.

Her passion for photos mimics her parents, Austin and Reba Saville.

“My parents’ home had walls and walls of photos,” the Altamonte Springs resident said.

She periodically discards less meaningful photos, but still managed to fill a floor-to-ceiling wall of storage cubes. When she opened her mother’s cedar chest, she faced the dilemma of adding more photo albums and framed photos to the already-bursting closet.

She tried to use a photo scanner to preserve them digitally but found the process too time consuming. One day, as she stood in line at her dry cleaner, a business card for photo scanning services caught her eye. She called right away.

Paper to DVD

In September, Tom Dee, a Winter Park resident and self-described shutterbug, started OnSite Photo Scan out of necessity when his in-laws downsized their home.

“They handed boxes and boxes of our family’s history over to me,” Dee said.

There are an estimated one trillion non-digital photos in the United States, and Dee believes there may be a billion in Central Florida, an average of 1,700 per household.

Dee’s state of the art equipment can scan up to 500 photos per hour, and his company works to restore and enhance photos damaged by heat, humidity, water and, yes, rubber bands.

“The adhesive and residue is hard to remove,” he said. Sometimes he must perform delicate surgery to physically or chemically remove photos from a photo album page. If necessary, he also provides assistance in organizing or creatively presenting the photos.

Dee picks up the photos from his clients’ home or business and returns them when scanning is complete.

“Trust is important when you’re talking about irreplaceable family history. Think about it, in Florida, when a hurricane threatens, people gather the kids, the dog and their photos,” he said.

Priceless pieces of history

As a child, Orlando resident Mary Stokes spent time at her grandparents’ home in Mississippi where her grandfather was the mayor and pharmacist and her grandmother graduated from college with a degree in home economics.

When Stokes decided to have some of the older photos scanned, her mother, now in her 80s, was concerned about one particular photo. “Mother handed me this photo and said, ‘Remember, this photo is worth $1 million to me.’”

The photo was taken in the 1930s in Mississippi and shows four children dressed in costumes for their school carnival. The boy and girl on the right are Mary’s parents, who were childhood sweethearts, now married for 63 years.

“I trusted Tom. … Everyone in the family was so thrilled, and we are so happy that we can all have the picture. It is a wonderful way to preserve our family history,” Stokes said.

Strengthening ties

So far, Matern has had about 2,000 of her 10,000 photos scanned.

She plays the photo DVDs on her televisions so that the photos rotate and continually display family memories.

“It’s a great way to enjoy and share our history with friends and family,” she said.

The paper may be crinkled and creased, the sepia tones may be faded but thanks to technology and one man’s persistence, the depth and color of her family’s fabric is stronger than ever.

Creative gift

Digitized photo orders placed before Dec. 20 are guaranteed to be complete before Christmas. For more information about OnSite Photo Scan, contact Tom Dee at www.onsitephotoscan.com or 407-574-8019.