Welcome to week three of Photography!  Last week, I gave you ten tips on how to take better photos and the week before, I talked about why you should take more photos.  This week, we will cover what to do with all those digital images you now have!  If you’re like me, my photos have generally lived on my hard drive or the memory card.  Not anymore!  I’m making it my mission to print photos and make albums, cards, etc. with my photos from now on!  Are you with me?

First of all, you need prints.  When computers crash a paper print is still there.  Sure, a physical print can be ruined, torn, lost, etc.  But treated properly, a print can last a very long time.  Plus, prints can be more easily enjoyed than digital photos that you have to pull up on your computer or other device in order to view them, especially if you have elderly relatives who are not computer savvy.  If you take the time to print your photos and decorate your home with them and fill albums with them, then others can easily enjoy them along with you!

Look around your house.  How many photos do you have displayed?  Only a few?  None?  That describes me.  For a former photographer, I’ve been really lazy about displaying my own family photos in our home!  If you look around and see many photos, then good for you!  You are a few steps ahead of us! 🙂  For those of us who have little to no family photos on display, we need to get busy.

The first step is looking through all your digital photos and picking out your favorites that you would like to see hanging on your walls or in albums.  When I used to make albums for my photography clients, I would start by making a new folder on my desktop (or anywhere, just remember where you put it).  Then I would look through all the photos and copy the ones I knew I wanted in the album into the new folder.  That way you have them all together in one place.  You can always delete this folder later after you’ve made your prints.  You could make separate folders for events or occasions or a folder for each of your kids and add photos to it throughout the month.  At the end of the month (or whatever time period you decide on), you could make an album for each event or for each child.  If you keep on top of your current photos this way, it makes the process much less painful.  But for those of us who have thousands of photos from years past to sort through, you will just need to set aside a day or maybe a full weekend to do this.  Don’t just say you’re going to do it either, write it on your calendar.  Schedule the time to do this and get it done!

Now that you have your photos together, look at them again and decide if you’d like to make larger prints of any of them for your walls.  Most people think an 8×10 is a “large print”.  Think again!  Take a look at the image below, borrowed from catewatersphotography.com, which compares print sizes.  An 8×10 looks puny in comparison to the others!  And on your wall, it will look tiny and be barely noticeable.  So when it comes to wall prints…. GO BIG!

Photo from: http://catewatersphotography.com

So you have your prints picked out for your album and you’ve selected a couple to print BIG for your wall 🙂  Where do you print them?  Personally, I find that many photo labs at the discount stores have color issues.  They may have cheap prints, but you get what you pay for.  Try to find a local lab that takes the time to calibrate their machines daily.  Their prints may be a few cents more but it will be worth it, plus you’re supporting a local small business!  You could also submit one or two photos to several local labs and compare the colors to see which one you prefer.  If you just can’t find a suitable lab in your area, there are some good online labs you can go to.  Just upload your photos, select print sizes, and submit.  Easy peasy!  My favorites are mpix.com and shutterfly.com.  These labs also offer photo canvases, which will really make your photos look like a work of art!  They are usually a little pricey, but if you have a special photo you really want to show off BIG on your wall, a canvas is worth the extra money!

You can also make albums and photo scrapbooks online through many different websites like mpix.com and shutterfly.com.  So if you’d rather do that instead of making individual prints and compiling your own album, go for it!  The options are endless!

The bottom line is that you have to make an intentional effort to manage your photos.  Set aside some time once a month or once a quarter, whenever you can, and get it done.  Remember, your photos are a legacy that will be cherished for years to come by your children and their children, etc.  I have several albums that belonged to my parents from the 50’s and 60’s and I’m sure they didn’t think they were anything special.  But I do and I’m so thankful they took the time to organize their photos into albums so I could have them now that they’re gone.  So if not for yourself, do it for your kids and grandkids!

Next week, our final week on photography, I will give you some pointers about photo storage, for both prints and digital images.  You’ll want to know how to preserve your digital files so that in the event of a computer crash, you won’t lose them.  And you want to make sure your printed photos will survive for many generations to come.  Your homework is to review some of your past digital photos, pick out some favorites and print them! 🙂

<3 Shauna

PS – you can visit me on my personal blog for recipes, knitting, and other fun stuff!  www.workhomeplay.net