using photos from 70s, 80s, 90s--help!

I do some scrapbooking for friends and family as a small business. My cousin gave me a bunch of old mismatched, dark, poorly taken photos from the 70s, 80s and 90s. The are all different sizes. I have them loosely organized into subjects (birthdays, vacations, etc.) but they look terrible on the page. These are not "heritage" style pictures, just bad photographs. How can I make them look good and cohesive? Any thoughts on organizing a family album over several decades with many themes and subjects? It's an 8-1/2 x 11 book.

hmmm ... what I would do is scan them and then use PS to put them into a new document and resize them that way - you can make them the same size, make little collages with them. You can put frames on them .... put them into photo strips like this one:

unphotogenic By Peenut_23

You can also adjust the colours and/or make them black and white or sepia so that they all match.

I just got a bunch of pictures from my mom from the 60's, 70's and 80's. One thing i have done is use a circle or a square to frame the person in the picture. For example i've taken a 2 1/2" square to put around my neice on a 3 x 5 picture. I have only done a few. I plan to scan some and see what i can do with those ones that are really dark. Some i have just thrown away because they are blurry and dark and just can't see who it really is.

• theScrapoholic Said:

oh, please send me your power to throw pictures away.......I need it fast!

I throw pics away ALL the time... Why keep it if it's blurry?

Did you get your hands on my files of family photos? I have those exact photos - dark, blurry, and from the 70s, 80s, and 90s! lol

Have you thought about scanning them and turning them to black and white? Then at least, they'd all be matching that way.

Honestly though, I know the boat you're in. I'm stuck there too. That's why I haven't even touched my family photos from those decades and are just scrapping my cute and adorable daughter.

Turning them into b/w is a good idea and also since you would be printing them you can change the size. When I have photos like that I find pps that pick up the main colors in the photo..which are not necessarily what the people are wearing or the background. Sometimes it is just the walls or the overall photo color You can match them.
Here's an example..the color I picked up on seems to be the skin tones and the picture frame. This photo is from the 70s and I always pretty much ignored it cuz although I love the subjects the quality of the photo itself was kinda funky. I didn't do anything to it. It is smallish but I put it on an 8x8 page.
20 minute layout By Dollscrap