OK I am the worst offender here but the time is now to print photos from the summer, otherwise they may stay trapped in your hard drive forever. And of course forever is really only until your hard drive fails and you lose them (ask poor Miss Lisa…she lost half a book and everything else in a laptop failure last Spring). I love taking pictures and I love getting them back all printed and fun even more. It’s something about having that memory in your hand or posting a new picture up at your desk that is just a great feeling.

Editing pictures
The pictures I shoot with my tiny point and shoot camera I use Picasa by Google for editing. It lets me upload, organize and do minor edits – resize, sharpen a slight color balance with a few quick clicks. I own a DSLR too and shoot in a RAW file format which Picasa can edit too, however for those photos I usually edit in PhotoShop or Lightroom, which are both Adobe products and require a lot more time and a bigger learning curve.

Printing pictures
I will admit I am sort of a picture printing snob and so I want to share some of my secret resources for printing your memories in a way that will be both high quality and done in a professional lasting manner. I print my pictures in a variety of sizes and sometimes with a white border edge and sometimes without. I always print my pictures on matte paper, it keeps smudges and tiny fingerprints off of them and I think they make the photos look a tad better overall.

The first place is a great lab in a small independently owned pharmacy in Wakefield RI, Wakefield Prescription Center. Scott who runs the photo lab has years of experience, having previously worked at Kingstown Camera and actually bought all there high-end equipment printing equipment. He will call you if something is wrong with your order and is almost always onsite to assist you. I love the easy and quick uploading site, as well as the ability to crop your photos yourself and see the crop before you order.

The second place is on the other end of the country, in Oregon. ScrapbookPictures.com is well known among scrapping moms and is a long-standing favorite of mine. They offer so many sizes and really cool papers –metallic anyone?- not to mention color correction, and top-notch service. I have ordered pictures one day, called the lab because I need to change the shipping spoke to a live person, and got everything changed right away. Doug runs a tight ship and is always there to help customers have the best experience possible.

Long term storage of files
A few benefits of the above-mentioned labs is they will store the albums you uploaded for a year as long as you place one order a year with the company. This is a great service they are offering customers and I use it as one of my back-up methods. However, like any free off-site storage there is no guarantee that is they had a major server crash your data would be able to restored. In other words, find a another place to store pictures. At my house I have home server that I regularly back-up photos on but assuming you didn’t marry an IT Geek there are some services out there to help you out. My favorite service is Mozy and I actually have a back-up of my pictures there as well. I know what you are thinking why do I need two back-up locations for photos? Well simple put my laptop and my home server are both in my home, and if anything happened, fire, flood, theft, I would still have pictures.  One note about Mozy, the upload takes a loooooong time even with a high-speed internet connection, so don’t curse me I warned you.

What to do once they are printed and backed up?
I think a great idea is to put them in albums that whole family can look at. I like these by Pioneer and they are readily available at local craft stores. My mother-in-law takes a small 4×6 book and makes albums for the kids and calls it “the story of you” it has photos of home, family, friends and special events. One page has a photo the other some words, like “this is you in Megan & Dave’s wedding” Sometimes we read it like a story and sometimes my son will sit and just flip through the pictures.

One last idea for a rainy day, let your kids get in on the fun. My most favorite scrapper turned photography teacher Karen Russell posted this on her blog not too long ago!

Stacey