You just got back from a two week vacation, what do you do with your 400 photos? Overwhelmed? Just print them all out, stick them in an album, and get to it later… wrong!
Take a lot of photos on your trip?
Flash back twenty years. You took 16 rolls of film with you on your once-in-a-lifetime vacation. You made sure they were each 36 exposure rolls. 16×36=576 photos!
Back then it was a whole lot more expensive to process your film. So, you probably spent about $12 per roll for processing. You spent at least $4 per roll for the film as well. This brought you to a grand total of $240 for those precious prints.
Now the big question is… what did you do with them? At best, you meticulously labelled each photo and stuck it in an album or scrapbook. At worst, they are still sitting in the shoebox with fingerprints all over them.
There those photos sit, taking up room on your ginormous I’ll-get-to-it-before-I-die list.
We've got to show everyone these photos from Pike's Peak
Flash forward to the present. You joined the digital age. So why, oh why, are you still printing out all those photos???? Fine, it’s cheap now. But are you really going to undertake the onerous task of labeling them and sticking them in albums?
And how are you going to show the photos to friends and family, pass them around at a barbeque and get fingerprints all over them?
Not to mention the lack of environmental love it must take. Can’t you hear those trees crying now? Kidding, just kidding.
But seriously, there is a much easier way to organize your digital photos. It’s called the computer. If you’re worried about losing the photos, order a backup disc of your photo card if you decide to send it in for printing. Or back them up yourself.
Let’s say you took at least 400 photos on your vacation. When you get home, download the photos to your computer using either a dedicated photo software for your computer or the software that came with your camera.
Personally I recommend either Apple iPhoto (comes installed on the Mac) or Adobe Photoshop Elements, around $75.
Both software packages allow you to retouch your photos, although Photoshop does a far better job. For purely organization purposes, I prefer iPhoto. You can sort your photos by GPS metadata and face recognition, which is pretty cool.
Whatever program you use, USE IT! Download the photos right into the software, and put them right into albums on the computer. You can then sort the photos, tag them, label them, whatever you want.
Most programs allow you to create smart albums. You set the criteria. It’s easiest to set the date range of your trip. Then, using the metadata on the .jpg files themselves, your program will automatically create an album with photos within that date range.
You can group all your beautiful landscape photos in one folder
If you want to get more pedantic, you can create a folder for albums from your trip. Then create smart albums from each section of your trip. For instance, each day of the trip in its own smart album. Then, simply select the best photos from each album and have those printed.
You can order prints of the 10 (or 50) photos you actually want to frame. You can upload your photos to Kodak, Snapfish, wherever, and order a book to show your photos to friends and family.
That’s right, a real book. It is printed on magazine-quality glossy paper. You don’t have to worry about finger prints. And you can add captions to every photo, free of additional charge.
A photo book can be ordered for less than $15, including over 50 photos! That’s a far cry from what it would cost to print out 400 photos.
It’s also a lot more interesting to your relatives. Believe me, they are being polite when they feign interest in all 400 of your photos.
A book can be shown to a few people at a time, but a great way to share your vacation memories with a group, is to set the photos to music and make a movie.
Just break out the popcorn, the flat screen, and a bunch of couches. 20 of your closest friends can watch a movie of your vacation, captions and all.
Most software programs are set up to create movies. Just be careful with your music selection and where you plan to show the movie.
Believe it or not, legally, if you are showing the movie at an outdoor venue (think barbeque) or public venue (think wedding reception) and are syncing photos to music, you need a sync license. Even with your own music!
You “should” get some royalty-free music in those cases.
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