How can I safely digitize a long rolled panoramic photo that won’t lie flat?

Question

I need to digitize an old panoramic school group photo that is stored rolled up. It’s about 1 metre long and 130 mm wide, so it won’t fit on a normal scanner bed. The print is fragile and may crack if I try to flatten it too much.

I was considering holding sections flat under glass, but I’m worried about damaging it. What’s a safe and practical way to digitize it, and is it better to scan sections or photograph it in parts and stitch them together?

user11772 · Accepted Answer

My first thought is that humidity is your friend, at least as far as rolled photographs are concerned. One approach is to put the rolled photograph into a closed container with some damp cloth/paper towels/sponge making sure that the photograph itself does not get wet. After a day or two see if it's a bit more flexible.

A suggestion from the National Archives is to carefully unroll a short segment of the image (imagine a scroll) at a time, allowing it to curl before and after the small area you've flattened. Then photograph that narrow flat area and composite the series of photographs into a panorama.

A combination of the two approaches may be your best bet, but the re-humidification may do the trick on its own. Don't leave the print in the container too long (multiple days/weeks) so as not to risk mold/mildew formation.

How can I safely digitize a long rolled panoramic photo that won’t lie flat?

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