Keeping memories alive

Leslie Nilsson's elderly neighbor used to regularly invite him to look through her family photos. She had a story for — and knew details about — each image.

"She was passing on this great verbal history," said Nilsson, who works for Salt Lake City-based Pictureline.

But when his neighbor died at age 91, her memories also died. No other person in her family really knew the history behind her photographs.

"It's sad," Nilsson said. "I see all those pictures, frames and folders of precious memories that have been treasured for 80 to 100 years, and now that's ended."

He encourages people to take the time to preserve their old family photos and also to document any stories behind the images. The options for preservation are plentiful.

At stores such as Pictureline, you can buy a flatbed scanner for about $500 and do the work yourself. You'll just want to make sure the scanner can do all types of negatives and also prints. Other companies, such as MotoPhoto and Larsen Digital Services, do the work for you, although it can be a lengthy process to get your pictures arranged in the order you want them scanned.

Which route you go is just a matter of time, budget and skill.

At MotoPhoto in Draper, owner Irene Casper spends much of her workweek on photo restoration projects and converting film negatives and VHS video to a digital format that can be burned onto a DVD.

Her shop is small, but the work is high-quality. During a recent visit, she showed off an old picture of a child she was working to restore. The original photograph had started to deteriorate, and big chunks of the image had been erased by age and time.

Casper had scanned the image to her computer and was working with a variety of photo-editing programs to digitally restore the deteriorated portions. It's a tedious process and requires knowledge of techniques, such as how to clone or copy existing parts of an image into the deteriorated parts.

"We can do anything from the very hopeless to the very minor," Casper said, in regards to her company's restoration services.

Casper said the benefit of having someone such as herself restore an image or digitize video and negatives is time and skill. With the photo of the young boy, she estimated she would spend maybe six hours on restoration.

The person who brought her the image had spent six months trying to do the work. When Casper finished the work, she said she would burn the image onto a DVD so it could be printed by the owner at any time.

"If you're good at the computer, sure, you can do this, but it will take you a long time," Casper said.