What to Do with All the Photos on Your Memory Card

Hi D.,
Sorry for the late response, but I think an excellent way to use pics is to do a montage like what they do on www.designamosaic.com I did one of these for my dad last year for Christmas and I used every one of the pics he had on his memory card. It was really neat. And the price is pretty reasonable. Good luck!

I keep all my pics on a small external hard drive. I then keep the drive in our fireproof box along with our important papers. I sort the pics by year, month and special occasion. I also go thru every so often and really look at the pics. If they are blurry or not something I would consider printing it gets deleted. That way I only keep the pics that are really great. I also am planning to get a digital photo frame to load pics onto. They play a slide show of all the pictures you store on them.

I am actually a preservation specialist. Here are some ideas. Keep a back up of all of your images on a NON re-writable CD--they are the most stable. If you'd like to back them up again on a flash drive you can as a back up of your CDs. As for your printed photos you need archival safe place, such as a scrapbook or photo box. However they need to be acid-free, lignin-free and buffered. These are the reasons I became associated with Creative Memories. Their albums and Power Sort boxes are the best on the market. The Power Sort box might be your best bet. You can organize 2400 photos very quickly and easily. Try this link:
http://www.mycmsite.com/sites/rachelyost/catalog-index?ev...#
Let me know if you have any other questions!

We like using www.Flickr.com. You can upload and store photos and videos there. They have an option to do it for free, but we went with the unlimited option for $25/year. You can order pictures and albums through their site. I like that the storage is off-site, so there's less of a chance of something happening to all our photos, it's easy to store them, easy to retrieve them, very organized, and I can print pictures if I ever want to, or I can order them. Friends and family can also login to view them or print/order their own photos too. We've used Flickr for about 4 years now and love it!

Upload them to a photo web site. I have used Kodak Gallery for years. Then you can sort through them and choose the ones you'd like printed or turned into a memory book. Research the different sites for the types of things you'd like to do with your photos. Snapfish is another good one. COSTCO & Walgreen's also have the same type of sites.

I guess I'm a strange mama. I don't print most of my photos. I'm not much of a scrapbooker, but when I do, it's digitally. I put my photos on CD yearly. I print very few of them. We watch them on the computer and I download some to my digital frame. But, for the most part, they are all on CD/DVD for future use, sharing, scrapbooking, etc.

not sure if you're asking for new ideas of ways to use the pics, or what to do to store them...

i am in no way computer savvy, but what we do is back them up on cd. it's kind of a pain but i always know we have them, if anything happens.

i always have grand plans for scrapbooking (still hope to have the time someday!) but it hasn't happened...all my friends and family are online now so they get to see them regularly anyway.

Make a photobook! I've always had grand intentions of scrapbooking, but with 3 kids under 5, it just isn't happening. I go to Shutterfly.com, upload pics (they store them for free), pick out a photobook theme, and either add each pic yourself or have the site put them all in the book for you. If you have them add the pics at random, you just have to go back and throw in some captions. A complete book in under an hour!

I do a Year in Pictures book at the end of each year. I just take all the pics from the entire year and put them in one album. This year I started working on it in January and just did a couple of pages a month. They run sales to print books at Christmas time. Last year my 40ish page book was about 50 buck. But it's a padded photo hard back and really nice.

My kids love to "read' their books! Everyone is always very impressed with them.

I'm still in the process of determining if I want to do something like Snapfish, ShutterFly or Photobucket. I do, however, keep all my photos copied on a flash drive. I need to make sure to put them into a safe deposit box though. I too, had photos on the computer and it crashed...we lost EVERYTHING from our summer vacation! I was devastated! I even had gone out of the way to get special outfits for the kids when I took pictures of them on the beach! So, no, definitely don't trust your computer and if you are doing CD I would also back up on a flash drive and here's why...CDs are easy to scratch and then become unreadable...if you are going to go that route, make sure they are in a safe (and not heated spot) or they too will be destroyed.

Girl, you need to get on Snapfish! Upload your pics and put your favorites into an album. You can create an album by an occassion or no occassion at all! They come in all sizes, hard and soft back. I make albums by the year...there's no way I can use all my pictures, but I pick the best and make a book. The books can get expensive if you go over the alotted pages, like I usually do!, but they also can be reasonably priced. I just got a deal to do a free Halloween book on Shutterfly, so you get coupons all the time! Good luck and have fun!

Hi D.,
I've taken over 15,000 photos of my daughter in the last 3+ years, plus lots of video. I upload my photos to iPhoto on mac and organize them...I tag them with who's in them so I can go back later and find pictures with certain people (last year I made albums for family members of my daughter with each person). I also pick my favorite shots...these I upload to the Walgreens site to share with friends and family (the few that have the time to look at them-ha) and I get prints of them. I have made photo books with my favorite photos from each year. Right now, all the prints are in boxes, but I would like to put them in albums...it's a little overwhelming. I would also like to organize my videos. My photos are on an external hard drive and I back it up to another drive periodically, but worst case, I know I at least have my favorites on the Walgreens site. I think I want to print 8x10's of my absolute favorite shots and put them in a large album. Good luck.

I am also a big fan of Snapfish.com. I keep all my pictures on there. I use the flipbooks that they have.

Hi D.,
I was the same way! But I learned a very hard lesson not too long ago. I just kept all the pictures on my computer sorted in files by dates and then the unthinkable happened...my computer crashed and my hard drive became unreadable by a VERY nasty virus. Not only did I have to purchase a new computer, but I lost all the pictures that I did not print out. Since then I copy all my pictures to cd's that I keep in a safe place and I also store my pictures on an external hard drive. I print out my favorite pictures to look at in albums and frames.
Hope this helps a little.

You can download all to Walmart, then print the ones you want, as long as you use their site sometimes they will keep the photo's. Don't forget that websites often fail so don't count on any. You can buy Flash Drives (http://www.walmart.com/search/search-ng.do?search_constra...) for as little $10, they are small, so easy to store, just have a safe place for them, lot's can be stored on them so if your computer crashes and you don't have a genius in your house the photo's won't be lost. Also you might think about buying one of those digital picture frames, the pictures change on them and it saves the photo too. Just a few thoughts.

Good question! I put all of mine on the hard drive on my computer. BUT since computers can crash and those pictures are precious and you cannot get them back if something happens to them, I copy them to a disk as well. Its pretty easy and your computer walks you through it. All you get is one of those writable CD's that can store picture files. This way you have them on your computer to print whenever you want and you also have a back up if something happens to your computer. You can do this until you decide if you want to print them or put them in an album or scrapbook. I hope this helps!!!

burn them to cd's and label how old she was on each disk. That way when they get older and doing projects for school you can print just the ones you want. They are also fun to play in your DVD player and let play on the TV like a slide show. I would also make a separate disk with your favorites so when you want a quick glance you don't have to go through thousands of pictures to find the ones you want.
My kids are constantly needing baby pics for projects at school and would be so much easier to find them on a disk and print them off rather than sort through all the albums and envelopes of pictures that haven't made it in an album yet then scan them and print.
One of these days I am planning to scan my favorites and put on a cd so I have quicker access to them when the kids need them for a project.

In some way...get the pictures printed. Through a story book or just pictures. You daughter wants to see pictures of herself. You cannot replace the printed picture. Realize that you don't have to print every picture you have taken. Scrapbooking isn't for everyone but these pictures are precious to you just like your daughter. Digital albums are quick and easy.

I have been a Creative Memories consultant for over 15 years and realize that we are all at different places.

Online albums are great for sharing for family.

If you (or anyone else) has any question please feel free to contact me. I'd be glad to help you figure out the best way to get your pictures off of your computer. www.mycmsite.com/sites/sharonwhitehall

Your best bet is to create "digital albums" ie: CD's. Burn all the pitures onto CD's. You can categorize each CD, and create a timeless memory that will never fade or weather

Phanfare.com is a great site, to share with family and firends and to preseve photos, and if you have a fire or loose your photos all of your photos are kept there and they will give you a CD of them if something happens. We have been using them for years and been great. You can also share with family and friends. check it out.
They also have options now for memory books, christmas cards, etc.

I like to use the Picasa picture program and make collages of the pictures. They will end up small. But you can have anwhere from 20 to 30 or even more all at once on one page at a time. That way when you print them for albums your space will go further. Picasa is free for download. Just google it :)

Suzi

Good Morning D., Join the club...lol I have Wal-mart, Kmart or grocery store developed printed Pic's of our son's every where when they were growing up. Now with the digital age I have Boocoo's of Gr kids pictures now. After I put them on my PC I make a CD for each kid-o, with a few family pic's on it also. I write on the CD what it is the dates like from Birth to 18 months... Then I delete them off my card and start over again.

I am Terrible about putting all of our film developed pictures in Albums... UGH..
When you want to print off a special pic put in your CD and there they are. I use Adobe Albums and Kodak shareware.

I would like to scrapbook BUT I don't need another hobby, reading and quilting are enuff and I don't get alot of time for those now.

Have fun with your Pictures D.,
God Bless you
K. Nana of 5

Are you wanting to have them on your computer still or printed out or just available to print...? If you are not wanting to print them but still want them available to print, you can upload them to Shutterfly or Snapfish- and you can do them by album/month/event, however you want them organized. Or of course you can get them on cd's- upload them to walmart.com or walgreens.com and get them all on cd's. You can make photobooks (my personal favorite). You can continue to save them on your computer- just make sure you're backing it up! If you do want them printed out, photo boxes are a great storage idea. I have all of the photos that I want in albums/scrapbooks printed and organized in those boxes and they are convenient and hold a lot. (They are available at craft stores- Michael's has them for $3.99 at least once a month).

You could take them in to a photo shop or If you have the capability on your puter put them on a Cd/DVD It will ty up alot of space on your computer also!Good luck Let us know your decision!

One suggestion I have to avoid printing all of them, is to get a REALLY BIG memory card and put them on to that, and then get a digital frame and allow your family to enjoy all those pictures all the time. This also makes for a WONDERFUL present for Grandparents and Christmas is right around the corner. Also you can add the frame to your christmas list and it makes it even easier. For my mother in law, we had all of my husband's siblings send up pictures of their family, and we took extras at thanksgiving, and it was a wonderful suprise for her. The extra pictures that I have we put on external drive, or on cd, and just label them well and save, just in case, and so we can look back... ahhh the memories, when they were young and didn't talk back.