Wednesday, May 14, 2008

A Mellow Week

Not much going on here hence the lack of posting. It has been pretty gray and I am not complaining because I am getting some much needed things done around the house and to be honest I like a good rainy day every once in a while. The sun did make an appearance all day yesterday and it was beautiful. My sisters and I bravely took our children on an outing all together to Greenfield Village and had a great time. There were 1 day old lambs that were adorable. I would show pics of the outing but being my scattered self I left my camera in a different bag in the car. I was expressing to one of my sisters that I feel like no matter how organized I get I am at my core scatterbrained. I was hoping I would grow out of it and I guess at this stage of my life I could chalk it up to "mommy brain" but who am I kidding? Oh well!

One of the projects I am working on is uploading my pics to Shutterfly (I haven't done this since September) so that I can put them in an album. I think this is my "old school" self that needs to do this . I talked to Molly and she pretty much digitally stores her photos and they've begun to make really cool photo books for the outstanding photos. I know that there are a million creative ways to store photos nowadays and am asking all of my readers (I know you are out there b/c my counter claims that people actually read my ramblings) to share with me how you do it. Even if you don't have much of a system stop by and say "Hi!" Thanks in advance for the info. I do want to do this photo storing efficiently and am not sure whether photo albums are where it is at. So please leave me your tips in the comments section over the next week or so. Thanks!

6 comments:

Mercy Filled Mama said...

I consider myself to be very organized, but tackling the overwhelming project of organizing all our photos of the kids in the last 4 years seems almost un-do-able to me. I am really bad about just downloading my pics and saving them onto a CD then never getting them developed. I know… I am terrible! We did go as far as to get a fire safe that I put these saved CD's in, just in case of a fire though. I have gotten a few developed from Walmart- I have used the in store process and the online process. Online is definitely better for me, so I am not standing in everyone's way for the length of time it takes me to do it. Is it just me or does everyone in your town go to Walmart the same day and time that you do? Anyway, as far as actually storing the photos... I have used Picasa, which is more of a digital photo editing type thing. I love Picasa cause I can just upload my pics and edit them to make them black and white or with a hazy glow around them or anything cool like that. Just recently I was doing that with Picasa and decided to try to get some of those "picasa edited" pics developed. I went through Snapfish this time, rather than Walmart. So far, I cant tell you anything positive about Snapfish. I placed the order on the 6th, but never received the email order confirmation. So I emailed them on the 9th. They emailed back on the 11th saying I should get the pics in the mail in 2-3 business days. Today was the 3rd business day and I still have not received them. I will probably not use Snapfish again. I will look into Shutterfly, as you mentioned and see how they are. I dont know if its possible to edit your pics through shutterfly or not, but I would highly recommend looking into Picasa to really turn some of your digital pics into true gems. Its amazing what you can do! Best of luck with it!! I know its a super big project to undertake, but you are wise to get started on it as soon as you can.
~Tricia
psu1218@hotmail.com

Becky @ Our Sweet Peas said...

Thanks Tricia! I appreciate you responding. I usually edit on my computer with the software that came with my camera but you can edit on Shutterfly and I definitely like them. The best part is that I am always getting 15% off coupons and this time I used my Pamper Points to get 200 free prints. Please keep the suggestions coming!

Rachael Schirano \\ Rachael Schirano Photography said...

i have no idea what to suggest since most of my photos haven't been printed yet. ok, none of the photos have been printed. i have them on our hard drive, a back up hard drive and i am working on uploading everything to flickr right now. i think eventually i would love to make photo books with a lot of the prints, but i haven't had the time for that yet!

LauraC said...

I am kind of a weirdo about photos. I work in software and here's how I always illustrate my point on printing photos. Do you ever use any floppy discs? No? Well floppy discs are just 15 years old.

If you keep only digital copies, you will need to keep transferring them from your current CDs (or DVDs) to the latest and greatest media storage. And those types of storage get corrupted.

So we print copies of the photos we want to keep forever, and back everything else up on disc. Once you decide you're only going to print the awesome ones, you get much choosier about what to print. It's pricey!

As for how I keep on top of it, at the end of every month, I clear out both cameras of pics and videos. I download everything, sort it, and decide which ones to print. Take them to Wolf (where they know me!) and print it on the best paper possible.

I then write the month, year and kid on the back. Store them in photo boxes in chronological order.

By doing a little bit each month, I never end up with full memory cards and it's a manageable task. Also helps stretch out the budget a little bit!

(see I am crazy about this topic???)

Liz said...

You are ahead of me on this one. I have only backed the pics up onto CD's and we store them in a fireproof safe. I have to make copies of the CD's and give to grandparents to keep too. I'm that neurotic. I would like to make photobooks at some point.

Becky @ Our Sweet Peas said...

Good idea with the fire safe. We back them up on disc but they aren't in a fire safe that is unless Jared has already done this and I just don't know. He is great at this stuff so it wouldn't surprise me.