When you’re dealing with smoke damage photos you have some time to get your thoughts together and to make a plan. But don’t take too long. As your photos will continue to fade and age at a more rapid rate then before they were damaged.
First there are several things that you should not do. Smoke damage photos tend to be more brittle. If you fold them or handle them you can do additional damage over and above what the smoke has done. Also many things that you see on the internet such as spraying Febreeze, putting them in a moist room like a bathroom or other so-called solutions will do more damage then the smoke has already done.
What I recommend is keeping them separate from one another so they are not touching. Make sure there’s no moisture on them. Then taking them to someone who is trained on how to scan and restore your photos.
In this video I talk about several things you can do if you are dealing with smoke damage photos. https://youtu.be/uzM3cWOTpa0?si=O8Cw7YfmfBfF8YQz
If you are in Southern Alberta and you’re looking for someone to help you restore your smoke damage photos I would be more than happy to help. My process is that I digitize your photos so that we have a digital copy and we don’t have to worry about further damage. Then I restore the photos from that point. Giving you either fully restored digital files, prints or both digital files and prints.
