We all have important pictures and documents that we have collected over the years. Important documents can include wills and loan agreements and birth certificates, but are also certainly not limited to these things. In addition to this, important pictures can be hugely important from an emotional standpoint. Pictures, in many ways, help us to keep track of our histories, and to remember and reminisce about our pasts.

Unfortunately, both of these things are susceptible to a certain amount of degradation over the course of time. In many cases, papers and pictures can become faded and difficult to decipher – and some of them will even likely begin to fall apart. In many of these cases, the results can be devastating. Fortunately, there are a number of steps that can be taken to prevent this from ever even happening in the first place, from storing the printed area of a picture with care to mounting pictures correctly to even just using the right kind of paper to print these documents and pictures on to begin with, paper that will stand the test of time better than some of the alternatives that are available to the user in question.

For instance, using acid free paper is recommended when printing pictures. Acid free papers can last for an incredibly long time when they are stored under the right conditions. In fact, this type of paper can even be sustained with relative ease for as many as 200 years, so long as this acid free paper is used for any printed area of the picture or document (as is most often always the case, of course).

And there is even more that you can do to improve the sustainability and overall longevity of just about any printed area. For instance, you’ll want to store such a printed area at a low humidity, as this will help to prevent the growth of mold and the chances of attracting insects and other life forms. However, it is important to keep the relative humidity above at least 15%. If this is not done, the printed area can all too easily become brittle. Falling between the relative humidity of 65% as well as the relative humidity of 15% is ideal, and can help to keep just about any printed area from becoming damaged in storage as time passes on.

You’ll also want to properly care for not just the pictures and documents that are stored, but the pictures that are displayed throughout your home as well. To prevent the sunlight that comes into your home, there are a number of different steps that you can take. For one, you can use heavy draperies to block out the sunlight of rooms that are not in use. In addition to this, applying a window tint can also be ideal. This window tint won’t significantly reduce the overall light that enters your home, but you also will be able to protect your picture, your walls, and even your furniture from falling victim to the fading effects of the sunlight. These window tints can also provide a good deal of skin protection as well, as some degree of UVB rays are still able to pass through windows and have a detrimental impact on the human skin.

Using copies of pictures and not the original copies is also ideal. In such cases, the original copies are easily able to be stored and protected, without the risk of damage occurring to them as is the case for all pictures displayed in any given home. Copies of pictures can still be hugely high in quality, but will not be as sentimental and as important to protect as the original copies. Keeping them in high quality picture frames is also quite ideal, as this will likely completely conceal the fact that they are only copies.

The storage of your pictures and important documents is something that just about everyone will need to consider. However, there are many steps that you can take, such as safe mounting, the use of acid-free photo envelopes, and tape for archival use.