Photo Boxes

What harms your photographs?

Everything grows old with time. Even your photographs! As they age, factors like environmental pollution, humidity, heat and acidity (acid is found in most materials like paper, wood and plastic that boxes are normally made of) and even light cause adverse chemical reactions that eventually lead to damage and discoloration of your precious photos.

Why do you need to store your photographs in a photo box?

A photo box protects your photographs against all these detrimental conditions. Mind you a photo box is no ordinary box. It’s a scientifically designed box, treated with an alkaline substance that can neutralize the effects of acidic materials that come into contact with your photographs. Some are lined with acid resistant paper inside to provide you extra protection against acid attack.

Photo boxes when stored in a cool, dry and dark place also provide photographs protection against pollutants, temperature variations and dampness, the other adverse factors.

A photo box also makes storing and sorting of photographs really systematic and organized. You can sort photos according to date, subject, occasion etc and place them in different photo boxes. These can then be stacked one on top of the other. This saves space and it also makes it easier to trace a particular picture when you go hunting for it months or even years later.

Factors to consider when buying a photo box

There are a few important things to keep in mind for when choosing a photo box:

1. Material – Ensure that the material used to make the box is treated with an alkaline buffering agent that works as a safeguard against acidic reactions. Cheap imitations of these boxes made with inferior material can cause more harm than good. Stay away from these.
2. Size – Make sure the box you are buying is of the right size and depth to store a large number of photos together. Sizes for photo boxes range between 8/10 inches to 22/30 inches and all come with a three-inch depth. If the box is too small, photos will not stay flat and that may damage the surface of the photo. In case the box is too big the photographs will have too much space to move around and the edges might get damaged by excessive rubbing, both with the box and with other prints.
3. Corners – The corners of the photo box must be reinforced with metal. Otherwise it will sag when you stack a number of photo boxes together. This will in turn damage what it is inside.
4. Accessories - Most photo boxes come with acid proof clear plastic bags. These are extremely useful for easy storage and viewing of single pictures. You can also consider using acid free tissue paper placed between photos for additional safety. Together, with photo boxes these will provide you a complete and fool proof photo storage system.

You’ll just love this amazing photo box

We bring you a completely unique photo box. The Umbra Stowaway Box! It’s a combination of 3 wooden photo boxes of different sizes that are brought together to create this remarkable piece. What’s more, each compartment has a sliding lid that pulls out to fit in one photograph. So now you have your personalized multi-picture photo frame cum photo box ready to be used.

The Stowaway box comes to you from Umbra, the worldwide leader in original, casual, contemporary, and affordable accessories for the home. Umbra designs and manufactures stylish products, for every room in the house. These include stylish photo accessories like frames and boxes.

A good quality photo box is the most effective way to protect you precious photographs from irreversible harm. It is therefore important that you look at it as an investment rather than expenditure. Make sure you buy the best you can afford and you won’t have to worry about the state of your valuable photographs for year to come.