Your 21st Century Photo Album
The days of old-school photo albums are dwindling. Whether we like it or not, technology has transformed the way we do just about everything — including taking and displaying photos. Today, most of our memories exist in the digital world, and our beloved photos and videos live in a “cloud.” There’s no need to panic because you can still make your modern photo collections last.
In fact, technology offers a plethora of ways to jazz up your pictures, from organization and enhancement to personalized hardbound books and easy sharing. Not to mention, it can help preserve photos and minimize the risk of losing or damaging single copies.
Sounds ideal, right? Here are a few tips to kick-start your digitized photo collection.
Sorting Through Photos
Digital photography gave us the ability to take unlimited photos, but keeping track of all those snaps can be overwhelming. These applications help sort your photos:
Google Photos stores all your images on the cloud, with options for editing and easily sharing to social networks. It also features a powerful search engine for combing through and organizing your photos based on date, location, and facial recognition.
Picjoy organizes smartphone photos by season, weather, time of day, and other criteria, making it easy to search images from a certain event or with a distinctive mood.
Storing Photos Safely
You likely have thousands of treasured images you’d hate to lose if your device crashed or got lost. For maximum security, always (and we mean always) back up your files on an external hard drive and online.
Dropbox stores all your photos on the cloud. It also allows for secure, easy sharing and collaboration when sharing photos or documents with loved ones.
Carbonite is an automatic backup service that keeps your files safe even when you lose them on your primary device. In other words, it offers unlimited protection of your personal documents, photos, and videos with one click. Plus, you can access your files anytime from any device.
Hard Copies
Digital snapshots are great, but don’t forget about the almost-lost art of photo printing. Try these ideas for making physical photo albums and displays:
- Snapfish makes it easy to upload and order prints in various sizes.
- Shutterfly also makes hardcover photo books, the modern answer to traditional photo albums.
- Scrapbook if you’re feeling creative; your book will become a wonderful memento throughout the years.
On the flip side, if you’re looking for a simple solution to digitizing hard copies of photos, try one of the below scanner apps. It’s the easiest, most affordable option for maintaining your precious pictures.
If you use Google Photos, Google PhotoScan automatically backs up scanned photos in your phone’s library. The tech is free and suggests you take multiple images of each photo so it can stitch together the best quality, glare-free digital picture.
Microsoft Lens directly uploads your documents to a Microsoft cloud for safekeeping. It’s completely free and simply requires you to line up your photo in the viewfinder and tap the scan button.
If you’re hoping to scan multiple photos with a single tap, Photomyne automatically crops and processes a collection of pictures individually. It costs $5 a month, but you’ll also receive access to basic editing tools that allow you to rotate, crop, filter, and color correct.
Get Creative
There are endless ways to preserve your photos, so have fun with it! Make your photo collection a family activity:
- Make a memory game by attaching favorite pictures of different family members to pieces of card.
- Add to your fridge magnets with this neat clay trick.
- Create photo coasters to add personality to your tabletops.
Another fun way to use and display your photos in a unique way is to create a vision board.
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