Scrapbook Friday - Pictures

Last week we talked a little about why we scrapbook and why it is important to tell the story that goes along with your pictures. Today we want to focus a little on the pictures and how we can store and print them.

Let’s begin with storing the pictures you take:

We all have our own system or none 😉, but I found keeping pictures organized by year is the simplest way for me. I mostly take pictures with my camera and therefore download them on my computer every couple of months (plus the pictures on my phone). If we went on a vacation trip, I would download them right after we get back while my memories are still fresh. I start in January with a new folder e.g. for this year 2019. Then I add subfolders with titles of occasions, trips etc. to it. I usually start with 1….,2… so they stay in the order they occurred in the year. By the end of the year I transfer the whole year onto my external hard drive and create a DVD as back up.

I tried to use one of the many filing systems on the market, but they take up too much of my time to keep them updated. I like my simpler system for that matter. 

Now that we have all our pictures in one place, we need to get them printed. There are pros and cons to printing them at home. I rarely print photos at home since the ink is just too expensive for the number of pictures I have. If I only need one or two, I might print them myself otherwise I will order them.

There are many companies out there where you can order your prints from. Here are a few examples of companies I use:

1.)    Persnickety Prints …. https://www.persnicketyprints.com

2.)    Snapfish …. https://www.snapfish.com

3.)    Shutterfly …. https://www.shutterfly.com

Shutterfly and Snapfish are the most common ones and they both offer a great price for their prints. Use their email sign up to get special offer including free prints. Both companies also offer a prepaid option where you get an even bigger discount on your prints.

Persnickety Prints is another great choice especially if you are looking for special print sizes including 12”x12” prints. The picture quality of all these companies is excellent.

I am not affiliated with either of these companies and therefore these are a personal choice of mine. 

Regarding the pictures on your phone, a friend of mine showed me a really need app the other day. You can download them on your phone or tablet and they create collages from your pictures. The nice thing about this is, you can pick a templet, then choose picture from your device and place them into the templet. You created your own little collage that is ready to be ordered like a normal picture. Love this idea!

Now that we established the how to store and where to order pictures, the question that remains is: Which pictures should you print?

I know, this is a hard question. I usually check my folders when I download them onto my computer. I look for pictures that are not sharp, fuzzy or where the object is off. Yes, I pick them out. Mark them and…… yup hit the DELETE button! You did read it here……delete!!!!!

I know, this is a tough one, but let’s be real. I too had these great ideas I would load these more than perfect pictures into my Adobe program and fix them. Guess what? Yup, never happened!

It’s just not worth the trouble and to make things easier on you, I guaranty you will find a similar picture in your pile that is just right! So be bold and get rid of those pictures that are not right. This will help you later when you start composing your pages.

Now all that is left is to choose a company, load your pictures into their system and order them. You can further narrow down the pictures you want to use for your pages, or you do what I do, simply order the rest. But why order all if you don’t need them all you might ask? Well, I often found that I forgot 1 or 2 or I needed a different one etc. Since the pictures only cost pennies, I order all of them after I prescreened them. I use leftover pictures for card projects or create little albums and photo frames as gifts.

OK, it’s your turn now: Get organized with your pictures. Sort the bad ones out and delete them. Order prints of the ones you like or all of them and you are almost ready to start your first project. Next week we will talk about how to get started without getting overwhelmed! So, start sorting your pictures one pile at a time....