Flooding in your home can do more than just damage your property, it can also damage your precious photographs. Your photos don't do well when they are wet. Water and mud can really damage your photos. However, if your pictures do get damaged  by water, there are some things that you can do to get them back to good condition. 

Rinse Them Off

It may seem counter-intuitive to rinse the pictures off since water is what caused the damage, but it is the first step to restoring your pictures. You never want to put your pictures under running water. What you want to do is get a basin or bowl full of clean, cold water. Submerge the pictures in that water. That gets any and all dirt off the pictures. Make sure you change the water out regularly. You don't want to carry any dirt over from one set of pictures to the next. Take them out one at a time, if you can. If they are all clumped up, don't try to separate them, you could cause more damage. 

Freeze Them

Put the rinsed off photos in a freezer bag. Try to get as much air out of the bag as possible and seal it up. Then you need to put all the pictures in the freezer. Freezing will actually stop any further damage from setting into the pictures. That will let you take your time to do any further restoration work or find a company that deals with photo restoration. 

Leave Them in the Frame

If your pictures were in a picture frame, you don't want to take them out of the frame. It may seem like the best way to handle it would be to try to take the picture out of the frame. After all, that would let the picture dry. However, taking the picture out of the frame risks the finish of the picture sticking to the glass, and the total destruction of your picture. What you should do is just put the whole thing in a freezer bag and freeze it all. 

Take Them to a Professional

The easiest way to deal with your water damaged pictures is to take them to a professional and let them handle it. They will have the time to do the work. They will also have low humidity rooms so that they can work on the pictures without the risk of more damage being caused. 

Dealing with a flood is bad enough. Trying to repair the damage to your precious memories can be very time-consuming, which is why you should just get a company like Ringstad Carpet Cleaning & Restoration in as soon as possible to help with the water damage in your home.