Hundreds of photos clogging your phone? Here are some tips for surviving the digital age!
Around the planet billions of photos are snapped, shared, and tagged every second of every day. In this era of social media and smartphones, it has become much easier to capture precious moments. But if you are anything like me, you rarely stop to organise those photos that stack up on your devices. Plus, if your precious snaps are stored on your phone and then you happen to drop it into the ocean while holidaying in Fiji… What then? Here are some tips to help you store, share and preserve your photos.
Storing Versus Sharing
When they first hit the market, digital cameras seemed like the perfect solution to photo storage, but the simplicity of taking digital photos has made us all snappy happy! The convenience of being able to take photos on our phones was soon replaced by the headache of hundreds – or thousands – of images being stored on memory cards, phones and computers.
If you think uploading your photos to Facebook or Instagram will keep them safe, think again. While social networks make great online albums, they are not ideal when it comes to photo storage. Especially if you might like to get those photos printed.
STORAGE OPTIONS
If thousands of holiday snaps are causing your computer to slow down, there are plenty of options that will keep your photos safe, and free up the space on your laptop or smart phone.
EXTERNAL HARDRIVE
The quickest solution to increase your storage space is to attach an external hard drive to your computer. Most attach via a USB connection and you can buy an external 2Terrabyte drive for less than $100 or a 4Terrabyte drive for about $250.
CLOUD BACKUPS (STORAGE AND SHARING)
‘Cloud’ backups are growing in popularity. A cloud backup is a service that provides users with a way to back up, store, and recover computer files. It is basically a way to back up via the Internet. These services are great for backing up your images while you are travelling.
Dropbox.com is one such service, which offers the first 2GB for free, and also allows you to share your files easily. A stand out feature is Camera Upload, which allows you to automatically upload your photos (and videos) from any device.
BACKUP, STORAGE PLUS MORE!
If you want more ways to edit your photos, share and store them some of the most popular websites include Shutterfly, PhotoBucket and Picasa. These sites, and others like them, offer free photo storage and a host of options for editing, sharing, and printing.
PRESERVING OLD PHOTOS
Do you have old albums full of photographs that have never been stored digitally? Sadly, over time, if these photos are not preserved they will deteriorate. Taking just a few minutes to bundle up all your precious snaps will ensure they are preserved for generations to come. There are plenty of services that will scan all your photos and return them to you along with a DVD or a USB or even printed into a beautiful photo book. Just Google ‘photo scanning services’ and ‘photo books’ and you will find many listings.
PHOTO BOOKS…
are a great gift for family and friends. Printed photo books are thinner than traditional albums, so they’ll fit better on shelves, and they can be stored online for future printing to give as gifts. On sites like Snapfish and Momento you can create calendars, canvas prints, photobooks, mugs and more!
By Angie Christofis
