Adhesive Albums
Expert Tips for Removing Photos from Adhesive Albums
Do you remember the adhesive photo albums from the 1980s that sandwich your photos between a layer of sticky cardboard and a plastic sheet? These are often called “magnetic albums” but there’s nothing magnetic about them. It’s really just a chemical sandwich of glue and plastic that are not good for preserving your photo prints.
We usually recommend removing original photos from these albums for scanning and preservation, but it can be tedious work. Here are seven pro tips for the best results:
- Wear gloves: We wear nitrile gloves any time we handle photos to protect them from dirt, skin oils, and fingerprints.
- Craft Spatula: Sometimes you’ll get lucky and the adhesive has dried out so much that the photos just slip off the page. But if the adhesive is still sticky you can use a craft spatula to help separate the photo from the album page.
- Unwaxed dental floss: In really sticky situations, you can use unwaxed dental floss to separate the photo from the page. Start at one corner, work the floss from side to side, and don’t lift until you’ve separated the entire photo so it doesn’t crack.
- Freezing: If the removal is especially difficult, you can wrap the page in plastic and place it in a freezer for an hour before trying again with a craft spatula or dental floss. The plastic protects the photos from any moisture and the cold can make the adhesive more brittle and the photos easier to remove.
- Follow the lines: The adhesive is normally applied to the pages in parallel lines at a 45° angle to the page. Therefore, we’ve found that pulling at an angle that’s parallel to the stripes of adhesive releases easier as you’re just releasing one row of adhesive at a time.
- Low angle: When you pull a photo from a sticky album page, keep the photo at a low angle as you pull instead of pulling straight up and away from the page. This makes it easier to remove the photo and minimizes damage to the face of the print.
- Leave it: Removing photos from these sticky albums is usually the best way to preserve them, but if removing them causes damage then it’s not worth it. If photos just aren’t coming out, then we suggest leaving them on the pages and scanning them in place.
If you need help preserving and scanning your family photos please reach out to learn how we can help.
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