I'm a staff photographer, not a photo conservator, but I think this would be
a good question to put forth to one of those folks, or at least a paper
conservator. What I would be worried about would be in cracking the
emulsion, by attempting to flatten them out too quickly by pressure. Or, if
the prints have been impregnated by mold/fungus, if they were
rewashed/refixed, that this would create further problems. When I field
questions like this at work, I usually try to pass them off to a qualified
conservator.

Personally, I don't think reprocessing them is the best way to go, nor do I
think dry mounting them is either. So....I'm usually reluctant to tell
someone what to do, out of fear that the print would be ruined...but I think
that if they weren't severely curled up into a tube, that you could probably
slowly add pressure to them, and maybe a little humidity, to flatten them
out. But, I think it would take a few days.

 Single weight fiber paper would curl now, if you were using it to
print with. As would double weight paper too. Chances are, if these are 3x5
size snapshots, that this paper is something like d.w. Velox or something
similar.

A couple of good books on general photo care are Siegfried Rempel"s "Care of
Phtographs", Kodak's "Conservation of Photography" and "Care and
Identification of Nineteenth century Images", and Weinstein & Booth's
"Collection, Use and Care of Historical Photographs".

Hope this helps,

Kent Thompson,  Photographer
North Carolina Museum of History


Opinions expressed in this message may not represent the policy of my
agency.

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