What Do You Do with Your Pictures?

To backup my photos, I have them all stored on an external hard drive that is stored in a fireproof box. I usually buy a new hard drive every 4-5 years since technology is improving and getting cheaper and since hard drives will wear down eventually.

I'm reaching the crisis point with digital pictures on my computer, so I decided that since I can look back quite contentedly on the pictures my mom put in albums for me that represent the highlights and fun things and funny moments, I can be harsh with my own pictures. My problem with digital is I am inclined to take fifteen pictures to get one good one and then forget to delete the extras. I do not have the time, motivation, or creativity to scrapbook, so I decided that for each of my boys I'm going to pick highlights and let Wal Mart's photo website walk me through making each a photo book--one per year for the first few years and then I'll go from there. You can select quite a few per page and arrange them with captions. I also bought a flash drive and have been moving my pictures from our computer to the flash drive. That way I can make prints if I want to in a store and free up some hard drive space.

One of these days I'll print out my favorites and essentials and actually start completing the albums, or I'll end up like my mom with boxes on boxes of photos and negatives that I intend to put in albums, but twenty years later I still have in storage. :)

I used to save my photos onto CDs til someone told me that CD's have a shelf life and will break down over time. Now I save pictures to an external hard drive. I also make prints (costco online) and store copies of the best pictures in acid-free boxes. One day I'll create scrapbooks for my kids, really I promise! Plus, I email pictures to my parents, so if our house ever burns down, I'll be able to retrieve a good sampling of photos from our email accounts.

I just took a scrap booking class and I asked which way is better to print out pictures and the lady said wait until Walgreens has a good deal on prints and have them print them out. If you are on their email list you will be sent offers every other day practically. She also said to get the pics out of their envelopes because they can be ruined after a period of time.

I save them to CDs.. and use Shutterfly www.shutterfly.com
I also print some of them.. .but haven't gotten around to printing all the photos and putting them in albums/scrapbooks..

I was getting overwhelmed with all the prints. I am not a scrap booker, and I too, was afraid that the pictures would not be ultimately safe on the computer, so I made one print of each.

Recently, I decided to start making photo books using online services. I used Picaboo.com. You download it to your computer...upload your pics, then desgin them into books. You can do hardcover, softcover, etc. You choose from thousands of backgrouds. You can even use your own pictures as a background, which is one of my fave features. You can add captions, and have 1-10 or more pics per page. I have done one book per year so far. I am working on my 2010 book now. Many sites do this, snapfish, etc. I decided to do this with my favorite pics, since when i looked back at the zillions form my dd first year, I couldn't believe how many, and some weren't even as good as i thought at the time. the books are very thin (mine are about 30-35 pages), and easy to store.

All the pictures I have of my little one are digital. some are on an SD card, some are in my phone, but most are in my computer. I love it, because I can show off my baby when I am out and I don't have to lug around a huge suitcase of photographs. or I can email pictures or videos of her to my family, so they can see her too.

Every few years I go thru the photos and make envelopes to give away. to my sister, my inlaws, my friends etc. any photo's that are of them at our house. store the rest in waterproof boxes. back up on computer is good also.

I store my pictures on Shutterfly and keep a CD of them.....

I create slideshow DVDs with our photos. I used Roxio when I was using a Windows machine and now I use Iphoto with my Mac. Its really easy and fun and the photos are more likely to actually be looked at by family. Its also super easy to give copies to family and friends that they can watch on their own TV.

I take my SD card to Meijers and have a CD/DVD made, depending on how many I take in a month I try to do this at least once a month sometimes for special events i do this more often. With the CD/DVD you can also get an index made so you can at least see what the pictures are that are on it. I say CD/DVD because I can't remember which it is I think it is a photo CD. They only cost 2.49 and it is a great way to store pics! I have Kodak Easy Share but don't really like online storage places so i haven't used them or Snapfish, but may try in the future.

I keep all of them on the computer, sorted by year, month, and sometimes event. I have some of them backed up on an external hard drive also. I do print off some of my favorites to put in frames or hand out to family. I wish I was better with scrapbooking!!

I store them in folders by year, and then sub folders by topic (birthday, vacation, Christmas, etc.)not only on my computer but on a half gigabyte back-up drive I bought at Staples, PLUS I create photo albums to share on Picassa. Picassa needs to be downloaded onto your computer and then it will automatically scan certain locations for new photos. It does not actually "upload" them to a website UNTIL you place them in photoalbums (so if you never upload and your computer dies both your own files and the Picassa files will be gone). The nice thing is that each photo album has a web-address that you can send to friends and family (and you can change if you do not want them to have access later). I also print out a few of the best ones to keep in a hard copy photo album since I think it is nicer to hand visitors a book to browse if they want to, then to make them sit through a slide show. I also want to buy one of those digital picture frames to display the latest photos - they hold quite a few photos and cycle through the pictures but of course require power. PS: Like the previous poster said: even hard drives do not last forever. You will need to transfer to the latest technology (I went from floppies to CDs to hard drive) to keep old photos.

We RARELY print pictures. We use Shutterfly to make picture books, usually by calendar year.

I have frames, scrapbooks, photo albums, collages. I have even had some pictures put on mugs, blankets, and pillows. We made a story book also with my daughters pictures.

I save all pictures off the computer on flash drives (usb storage devices) and DVD-R's.

You could also have them made into slideshows and put on DVD.

Just some ideas. GOOD LUCK!

Like you i have many scrapbooks, i also use albums , within these albums i cut the pictures in order to get more on one page(youd be surprised at how cropping can manage space!, and i give my kids their own album to make themselves and chunk them the similar, or double pics. I can only assume that soon i will not take as many.

The cheapest way to print a lot of digital pictures is a website like snapfish or shutterfly. You upload the pictures and then they mail you the prints. They also store them on their website so you don't have to worry about losing them.

Best wishes!

You said you're not too savvy with computers and technology, but what I do is upload my pics to Walmart.com or Snapfish.com and make digital scrapbooks. They're so thin that they don't take up much room at all. I like to make one for each child for their birthday and then one's for special occasions like trips, holidays, etc. You pick out what size book you want, how many pages, and the design theme, and then you can have the website automatically fill it in with the pics you selected or you can go page by page yourself (which is what I usually do). You could always try it. The site will save your "project" so you aren't obligated o purchase what you started. Good luck in whatever you find to do with your pics

M. ~
I upload my pictures to the Kodak Gallery. Some pictures I will print off at home, but most I order through Kodak (there are other websites, too, like snapfish, shutterfly, picaboo). They often go on sale for 10 cents/print. As long as I spend about $20/year, they store my photos forever. I have photos going back at least 5 or 6 years.

I also back-up my pictures from my computer onto a CD and store that in my fire safe. That way if anything were to ever happen to my prints or my computer, I can have another copy :)

Alot of the sites offer scrapbooking features, so you can make cool pages and books of all sizes without the cutting, gluing, etc. I took some antique family pictures, scanned them and made a beautiful keepsake book. I also was able to make some collage pictures for each of my siblings for Christmas.

I have a Kodak point & shoot digital camera. It came with the Kodak software for printing, editing, etc.(even without a kodak camera, you can download their software from their website) and is very simple to use. I recently got a Cannon Rebel and am still overwhelmed with using it, and the photo editing program that came with it....I tend to fall back on my Kodak editing. Just play with them, until you tell the computer to save, you can undo anything you've done.
have fun!
D.

Creative Memories has an awesome storage and organization system for your photos on the computer. It is called Memory Manager. It can organize, edit and backup your pictures. When hooked up to an external hard drive, it automatically backs up you pictures EVERY time you close the program. You can also save pictures to a CD or email to family.

We also have a photo book program. It is called Storybook Creator. It can be downloaded to your computer. Drag and drop your pictures in and upload to the Creative Memories Digital Center. You can work on it as much as you want off-line. You only pay when you upload and decide to purchase the book. Check it out at my website www.mycmsite.com/bredeweg

Next time you develop pictures clean your camera out by putting the pics on dvd. Then store it in a fireproof box so they are protected. That way if something happens to your computer(happened to my sis) or some disaster happens to the place your scrapbooks are kept you have every pic you took.