IdaClaire, such interesting photos. I'm glad to hear you're preserving them. I've scanned a lot of photos, some very old, negatives, slides and tin types. Plus all of our family photos taken over the years. Boxes and boxes, most not yet scanned. I had to ser that project aside for a while, but found it very rewarding. I just had a simple HP flatbed scanner and Photoshop. For people doing a lot of scans, there is equipment that will do batches and much faster. with Photoshop, I could crop, adjust the hue, contrast, saturation and remove or fix some of the artifacts (like your dots). Mold can create "foxing" and many album materials like plastic can leave marks, encourage mold, cause the photos to adhere to the plastic. Cellophane tape leaves brown marks. Inks can flow and transfer to other photos and leak to the image. Nowadays there are special archival quality materials that are kind, but in years past, these were not likely to be (readily) available. You might want to look into a preservationist as well as a scanning service, especially for any photos that are rare. The third photo down looks like a "Rough Rider". My grandfather was a Rough Rider, joining when he was 16 yo (fibbed to join). I have a bunch of photo from that era -- some showing all the tents where they trained (Florida). The men wore various types of "uniforms" -- apparently cobbled together from former campaigns. The uniform on the last chap does look like it belongs in a marching band; or possibly a conductor or circus performer. You might want to run that past an historian, or theatre production person. Someone at your towns historical society might be a good resource. When I was scanning a lot of old black and white family prints from those little booklets the photo shop used to put the 120 prints in, I got a huge kick out of enlarging them on my display screen. A regular wool skirt came alive with memories when I zoomed on it. I could see the flecks of colored wool dots amid the charcoal and found that I could remember that skirt of my mothers in detail and with that came a flood of memories and associations I was not informed of by just viewing the 3x3 inch gray toned glossy print. Now I want to post some of my photos and ask questions! So interesting.

Perhaps the easy one?

I made some thin pottery circles, using cookie cutters and stamping, for use as picture frame ornaments. Rather like a wreath. Shaped like a donut with the center open. I don’t know how to put a photo in, though. To use glue would look tacky. Commercial picture frame ornaments have a backing and usually 2 little tabs that swivel on a tiny screw: which concept doesn’t work for pottery. People need to be able to choose which of their own photos to put in, anyway. Anyone have a suggestion? I made a bunch and can’t give them as gifts until I figure this out! Thanks.

Perhaps this is another opportunity to laud the Rose Forum of the National Garden Association where many of us have joined (Jeri, Lisa, Nippstress, MustbNuts, Christopher and many more whose names escape me at the moment. It's a very friendly and easy to use forum, pictures are easy to load and there are no ads! You can be from overseas also, Marlorena, so I hope everyone has a look-in to decide whether they might decide to join. Anything new is never comfortable right away, and this has been my home for so long that I'm really sorry to part ways. I'm still going to answer posts here but I don't think I'll ever start a new post. Houzz has just worn me down with their ineptitude and lack of genuine concern for the gardenweb users, but it's difficult to wrench myself away. Perhaps it will be easier if I meet more of you over there!