Photographs and Papers Digitization Visit

Bring your photo albums, your favorite clippings, your most treasured images to have them digitized with Smithsonian staff members. Still Image Digitization will convert your favorite photos and memorabilia into high resolution digital image files.

• During each one-hour session we will spend approximately 40 minutes capturing digital images of your items. The other 20 minutes of the hour will be needed for other supporting tasks.
• Please plan to arrive 30 minutes before your session starts for preparation of your material, and plan to be at the facility for about 30 minutes afterwards for us to complete all of the processing of your digitized materials. When we are finished we will give you a USB memory stick for you to take home with your digitized collection on it.
• To help maximize the number of items we can digitize during your 40 minutes of capture time, organizing your items ahead of time will greatly increase the number of items that we can digitize! Remove photo prints from albums, pull items out of sleeves or envelopes, organize them by size with the largest at the bottom upwards to smallest items at the top of a stack. The more you have things prepared as one stack of individual items, the more we will be able to digitize during your session.
• IMPORTANTLY, this digitization session will only be to digitize flat items—photographic prints, post cards, calling cards, etc. We will not be able to digitize three dimensional objects, such as sculptures. Also we will not be able to digitize film of any kind, such as 35mm slides or roll film.
• The largest items we will be able to digitize will be approximately 16” x 20”, meaning your item must fit inside a 16” x 20” rectangle. It is okay if one dimension is shorter, such as 14” x 20”. The smallest items should be approximately 1" x 1”.