Approximately 40 million photographs are kept in the Institute of National Remembrance Archive collections.

Images produced or gathered by PRL security organs and by the former Chief Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation constitute the greatest part of the photographic collection. The  collections of photographers and legacies passed by private donors and institutions complete the collection.

The IPN Archive also purchases photographic collections. Some of these purchases are made abroad, from Polish diaspora organisations and institutions. Some photographs make up separate collections of a purely photographic character, however the majority are attached to paper documents and are scattered throughout the pages of the files. For example, in the records produced by PRL security organs, there are a huge number of photographs that are a part of operational case files, investigational files, court files and records of an administrative character. Most of the photographs are found in the personal profile files.

Prevailing among the photographs found in the records are images taken by the Security Service (SB) in course of its operational activity, documenting the everyday functioning of the institution. Other specimens are photographs seized during arrests and searches, confiscated as evidence or taken from other institutions. The value of these materials is not only the image. The notes and symbols with which the photographs were marked and the context of the placement of pictures in the files shows the work activities of the SB and gives a picture of their methods.

The images have different artistic value and quality, and techniques also differ. Positive prints of differing sizes prevail, however cellulose negatives and glass plates are also found, as well as positive prints developed on glass plates.

In the enormous photographic collection of the IPN Archive are also found specimens of significant historical value, for example the photographs in the original Jürgen Stroop report (listed in the UNESCO Memory of the World International Register), or Fritz Katzmann’s report, both being the part of the former Chief Commission for the Prosecution of the Crimes Against the Polish Nation collection. Among the most interesting and indeed, unique, are German propaganda photograph albums from World War II, and many other examples.

The photographs are digitised in the IPN Archive digitisation laboratory in high resolution; the high quality files obtained are then indexed and stored in the multimedia module of the archival information system Cyfrowe Archiwum (Digital Archive, CA); the digital copies and their descriptions kept in the CA system are accessible for users and are used for IPN’s topical websites and portals, films, etc.