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Fires destroyed your family photos. Here are some ways to restore those memories – Jobsmaa.com

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Los Angeles area fire survivors have lost significant parts of their lives to the disaster, including homes, livelihoods, community, and sometimes loved ones. But experts say replacing lost photos — mementos of cherished family, friends and places — may be easier than it seems.

“While photographs cannot replace what is lost, they can preserve the essence of what those things mean,” said Vanessa Quigley, co-founder of Chatbooks, an online photo book company. “A single photo can bring back a sense of home, a memory of a loved one, or a moment that shaped your life.”

Many online photography companies are offering special offers to Los Angeles fire victims.

How to Recover Lost Print Photos

Although printed photos in old albums or photos kept in a keepsake box cannot be recovered, there are ways to get back a version of your lost photos through digital sources.

Method one crowd source Or you can rebuild your photo collection by asking friends, family, neighbors, and teachers for pictures they've taken.

For example, if you lose your photo album containing your wedding photos, you can contact your wedding photographer and ask for digital copies. You can approach your wedding guests and ask for copies of the photos they took on the day, said company founder Lee Reams. Quilt, a crowdsourcing digital scrapbook company.

You may not get back the specific photo you lost, Reams said, but seeing other people's perspectives on that day or event can be a fun and healing experience.

Collecting those photos can be as easy as sharing them via text or email. There are also online platforms where you can share these photos without relying on social media sites like Facebook or Instagram. Ream's company Kwillt allows users to create specific “patches” linked to an event or person and invites people to upload photos with a written memory. Kwillt is currently offering fire survivors free access to an online site with the code “MEMORY”.

There may also be photographs Recovered by Old electronic devices Like smartphones, computers and external hard drives. You might have a couple of CDs with copies of family photos or even old SD cards.

Companies like DriveSavers can store and collect photos and data from damaged, malfunctioning or mechanically failed digital devices. DriveSavers can even recover data from computers that have melted in a fire, as long as the computer's hard drive has not come into contact with the flames.

The website describes how you can Assess whether data can be recovered from the damaged device After a fire.

Fire survivors in the Los Angeles area can get free data recovery assistance from DriveSavers, with a limit of one device per household, said Alex Hagen, the company's chief executive.

You can start the process by calling DriveSavers at 800-440-1904 to arrange for your damaged device to be shipped to the company with a prepaid FedEx label. Once the data is recovered, a new external hard drive containing all your information will be sent to you, Hagan said.

If you're currently living in temporary housing, the company can hold a new external hard drive for two months, but you should check with a DriveSavers team member first.

How to Convert Recovered Digital Images to Print Photos

If you have a selection of digital photos you'd like to turn into prints, many online services allow you to upload the images and send you the printed versions. Some online photo print providers include:

Most of these services allow you to create albums or items such as cards, mugs or calendars with the photos you upload. Chat books An online company that offers exclusive photo books is now offering free photo prints to Los Angeles area fire victims. Get started by emailing support@chatbooks.com for free service.

Protect your photos by creating multiple backup copies

The best way to make digital backups of your old print photos is to scan them.

Scanning every family photo in a box in your garage can feel like a huge undertaking, but Quigley said the project can be tackled in sections until you've scanned them all.

You can scan photos by purchasing an inexpensive flatbed scanner or using an app on your smartphone HP Smart.

However, if you decide to scan your photos, make sure to save them as a high-resolution “JPG or JPEG” file. Companies that print digital photos require files to be “JPG or JPEG”. You want the file to be high resolution so you have the flexibility to print the photo at any size without distorting the image.

If you don't have time to digitize your photo collection, there are online companies that can do it for you. legacy box.

Once you have your digital photos, Hagan recommends using a “3, 2, 1” strategy for storing your images: make three copies, and store two copies on different types of devices or storage media such as a computer, hard drive, or USB. Save a copy to an off-site location such as Google, Dropbox or iCloud.

You can go a step further by sending another copy of your saved photos on a hard drive, USB or CD to a trusted family member out of state for safekeeping.

Another option is to keep your digital photos in a safe deposit box on a locked device. These boxes can hold important documents, family mementos, pictures and other important items Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Experts warn against relying solely on social media to store your photos, as online companies can go out of business, services can be limited, and exporting images from these sites doesn't always reproduce high-quality images.

Make backing up your photos a weekly habit

If you have photo files on devices like your computer or phone, Hagan recommends making sure those photos are backed up to cloud storage or an external hard drive at least once a month.

When taking photos regularly, make it a habit to save digital files once a week or once a month.

Quigley calls it his “Sunday Pick,” a practice where every Sunday evening he clears away the clutter and saves only the best image from his smartphone camera roll from the previous week.

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