Opinions Wanted My solution for photos stuck to glass

[Richard Darling]

I have a good, long-time customer who is an avid aviator. He had some framed photos in his hanger. They had no intrinsic value, but were very sentimental. Curing some sub-zero weather, the pipes in his airplane hanger broke, and he came in to find his photos encased in ice. When he thawed them out, the were stuck to the glass.

He brought them to me to see if I could do anything. I searched the grumble and told him probably not. But I would try some things and see. First I scanned them so that I would have something to fall back on. I saw both ice and heat in various posts, so I tried them, but no luck.

As a last ditch attempt, I decided that since water caused the problem, that perhaps water could reverse it. I sprayed the backs of the photos thoroughly with distilled water, then wrapped them in a plastic bag and left them overnight. When I came in the next morning, the completely soggy photos peeled right off the glass with minimal damage. I dried them out, drymounted them, and reframed them. A couple turned out so nice that you can hardly tell there had been a problem.

To be clear, I would not attempt this with anything of monetary value. I felt safe in that (1) the photos were ruined anyway and (2) I had the backup scans.

I'm curious to know your opinions on what I did.

 

[Jerry Ervin]

I have submerged them in water before with good luck.

Like you, I scanned them first.

 

[The Wavy Framer]

Ooooh, I gotta go find some stuck photos to try this out!

Not once have I ever been able to save one

Thanks for the info.

 

[JRB]

For years, I always just soaked the photos and glass in water over night in a photo tray. It always worked great, never a problem. A few years back I soaked an old black and white photo that had been printed on some sort of quality paper from the 1940s. The next day the paper had disintegrated and the photo was gone for good. I was lucky in that my customer was understanding and let me off the hook. I did not have a scan or any other back up. I had done so many of them without a problem, I just did not think of it.

I don't soak photos off glass anymore. Best bet is just scan them and make new prints.

John

 

[Dees Dad]

All excellent advice-thanks for the tips.

Anyone ever try this with 'Unseal' instead of water?
NOT THE SAME THING but we've had excellent results removing photos from sticky mounts by floating them in a plastic bag (set in a tray) filled with Unseal.
No damage to photo whatsoever.

Wonder if it would release photos from glass with no ill effect? Might preserve older photo papers from 40's as above?

 

[janetj1968]

I've done something similar at home with a 'pack' of 4 x 6 photos that fused together.

I didn't leave them overnight, but I did soak them in water. I kept moving them around gently until they released, one at a time.

I pressed them in books to dry them..and they did...completely flat.

Good job!

 

[moglet]

The soak method might not be so good for certain recent inkjet photo prints: dye based inks can run.

 

[ScottK]

Unseal won't work. Its a solvent which is why it released the adhesive-based mount, you're dealing with moisture.

 

[Ylva]

I had some photos at home in the basement. And our waterheater broke ...so lots of them got stuck together.
I soaked them in lukewarm water with a bit of vinegar, dried between waxpaper under heavy objects and they came out fine. I was pleasantly surprised.

 

[BILL WARD]

the success of this technique will depend , entirely, on the 'paper' the photo is on------kodak will work(they stiill use PAPER backing), but others probably won't cooperate as they have a LOT of plasticiser in them----I have tried to do canvas xfers on that stuff and you can soak it for a couple of days and it still won't seperate.