is there any way of unsticking photos which have got wet & stuck together?

[Ponders]

I have mounds of them

(it's all DH's fault but we won't go there...)

anyway I was just vaguely (desperately) hoping that there might be some sort of solvent which would float them apart again without damage. (I don't suppose water would do it?)

I don't know (sorry) but, when we had problems with backed-up drains last year (don't ask) the flood restoration company the insurers sent did offer a service for restoring important papers etc. - wonder if they do photos too? Suspect not cheap though.

If these are normal photos, you definitely can, simply by soaking them again. The thing is that photos (photographic prints from Prontaprint etc or a dark room, not ones made on an inkjet or laser printer) start out life being washed in gallons of water to get rid of the fixer, so they are designed to get wet, and getting them wet again actually does them no harm, unless they're so dilapidated that the paper is falling apart. Try it with a few- soak them in the bath for a while then float them apart.

Keeping a pile of stuck together photos wet will give some prospect of restoration.Water is fine .

Put the while pile into a bowl with clean water and leave for 24 hours. Then work your way down the stack photo by photo and remove each from the next very carefully. Lay face up onto glass if possible and try not to let then dry out too quickly.

the disastrous soaking happened years ago & I've a nasty feeling I threw some out at the time, but I've been having a sort through this weekend & came across quite a few stuck-together packets

some of them have been ripped apart but lots are still stuck so I'll give the long soak a try - it can't make them any worse!

thanks, all