I've just been through a similar exercise with cleaning out the "archives" of a family member who died. Of course, everyone wanted a copy of every picture, but in most cases there were only bits and pieces of any of them. A dozen or so scrapbooks (easy) and a 36 gallon cardboard shipping drum 3/4 full of "loose parts."

The oldest pictures are, of course, the most "touchy" about any restoration of the original. Many of those before 1910 or so used strange emulsions, and sometimes bizarre chemical combinations. They were often "bonded" to or sometimes printed directly on backing materials that tend to resemble bone more than wood or paper after a few years have worked them over. The gelatin (if that's what the emulsion was) often resembles sand grains. Straightening (flattening) these, if they're significantly warped, may be all but impossible even with the best of archival restoration equipment. For these old ones, about the best that can be done is to roll them around on a good scanner, take lots of pictures from as many angles as you can get without trying to flatten them, and then cut and piece the different "views" back together. The distortions due to not being flat can be "warped out" by editing in the digital version. A digital camera in a good "studio" setup can sometimes work better than scanning, but takes a lot more skill.

Depending on your time, patience, and inclination, available software makes it likely that you can do your own "digital reconstruction" of those that can be scanned - even if you have to scan in little bits and pieces and patch them back together. Dirt, scratches, and even mold patches can be fairly easily "removed" from the image, and color fading can be "adjusted out" to get color pictures that may sometimes be better than the originals probably were when new. Even "unprintable" old negatives can (sometimes) be scanned and inverted into usable pictures.

If you consider trying some of your own restorations, by all means consult the best qualified professionals you can find to help you decide which ones you might try to do and which ones should be left to them. Very old pictures that are even slightly warped are probably theirs. Those stuck-together ones probably need a sterile humidification chamber that you don't have. Given the costs I've seen for pro jobs, the $$$$ values may have a strong influence for most other images.

There are a number of very good programs for photo processing, and most have very good automatic or at least semi-automated routines for salvaging camera errors, but restoration is a different game. My own very personal opinion is that the only program that fills the bill here is Photoshop Elements 2.0 (about $70 US) unless you can perhaps afford a recent version of Photoshop itself (about $900? US). You will need to use some non-automatic features to do good restorations, and will save yourself a lot of pain and suffering by getting a good reference on what to do. I can recommend The Photoshop Elements book for digital photographers by Scott Kelby, New Riders Publishing, ©2004, ISBN 0-7357139-2-8 (about $35 US). (I wish I'd had the book during the first thousand hours I worked on my restorations.)

If you have the inclination to try doing at least some of your own restorations, be advised that you will suffer some eye strain, you'll likely fill all available drive space with scans in various stages of restoration, and you'll get incredibly bored with fixing another picture of old aunt Maudy (the ugly one); but it is rewarding when you get the results that are fairly easily accessible with a little patience.

As commented above, the roll film pictures that are stuck together may be at least partially "unrollable" if soaked in plain water, but if you have any mold/mildew, the soaking may promote additional growth. Pictures stuck emulsion-to-emulsion seldom separate cleanly, but often you can "lift" the bits and pieces of emulsion that stick to the "wrong side" and scan and reassemble the pieces in digital editing. This is incredibly time-consuming, though, and is usually prohibitively expensive unless you're willing to do it yourself.

If you can find an archivist/restorer with some experience (and maybe even equipment) you should get an opinion before trying to soak them yourself. The very old photos, especially those on "thick board" backing, generally do not respond well to attempts to "rehumidify" them.

You do need to establish the "mind set" that "restoring" old photos usually does not mean "making the original like new." In some cases it is possible to "clean up" the original; but results are limited. For most professional services, "restoring" means copying the image from the original, and making a new picture that "looks just like the old one did when new." In cases of severe damage, it is sometimes helpful to be able to "inflict additional damage" to the original (as in letting it break to get it flat, perhaps) in controlled ways to get the best possible image. Most such "procedures" cannot be undone, so you must have a plan, and be confident of what can be undone in the digital image, before you start doing them.

John