The Chatter Box

Last week a friend told me that his laptop was stolen. And since it was the computer he had Photoshop installed on, most of his pictures were all on his laptop. Hundreds of them, of his children growing up, family events, etc. Unfortunately, whoever stole his laptop, also stole his memories. Imagine loosing all those baby pictures of your children.

It’s a common scene. In our electronic age, many of our prized pictures simply reside on a computer or a phone somewhere. If we are lucky, maybe a low res file uploaded to Facebook. Keep in mind, that computers CRASH. And phones occasionally take a dip in the pool. Then what do you have? Nothing.

You can save your files to CD’s. That helps a lot. We suggest premium CD’s and always close out a CD where you can’t burn more to it. Unfortunately CD’s aren’t the safest medium either.

As far as stability, photographic prints still rule. So I encourage all of you to take those favorite and meaningful images and have photographic prints made. You can frame them. They last longer. And except for a fire, they are the safest way to store your images. And the easiest way to look at them. By the way, an inexpensive photographic print will probably last much longer than your own inkjet printer prints will last.

If you really want to safeguard your images, have prints made. Then burn the images to a CD and store the CD at a friend or relatives house. Then, even in a fire, you can recover your precious memories.

We often get asked if we teach photo classes. While we do so on a professional level, we just don’t really have the time to teach classes to normal people who just want to make their own photos a little better. Not professional portraits, but how to use their camera better for better snapshots. After all, you can hire a professional for the important stuff, but you still want decent pictures of everyday fun things and events in your life.

So we will be doing occasional posts on how to make your own photographs better. So make sure you subscribe to our blog to get these tips.

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