Print Your Pictures

The digital age has allowed so many conveniences right at our finger tips. Other than being able to communicate with anyone and anywhere (if you have a signal that is), I think the ability to take and share photos almost instantly is one of the TOP TEN technological advances most widely used this decade.

I love adore am obsessed with taking pictures. I mean, it was my dream job after college to travel the world as a photo journalist. So who cares if the 'world' part became the span of my family of 6 and where ever our life takes us.... I've always been behind the camera, and let's face it, after having four kiddos, my photos have only quadrupled.

So the smart phones and digital cameras have made picture-taking absolutely the easiest, most convenient maneuver besides flushing the toilet, that we can do all day.
Click photo.
Share photo on social network.
Share photo on text to family and friends.
Email photo.
Photo automatically stays safe on a floating cloud.

Then what? How many people actually print out these photos to (gulp) touch with your finger tips, put in a frame, or place in an album for the family memory book? What about 18 years from now when your baby is wanting 30 photos from her childhood to place in the class year book? Will you find those flash drives or cd's? Will you have to scroll through some online database scanning through hundreds of photos on a computer screen?

Our world needs photos. Just as much as it needs art, literature and music, it needs photos. Real photos. It's so incredibly easy.

Many stores have their own photo app including CVS Pharmacy, Walgreens, and this girl's favorite, Wal Mart. I have online albums dating back to 2008. All photos are printed and all photos are also safe in online albums for my future use, whatever it may be. There's also other avenues for printing photos, snapfish and shutterfly to name a couple I have used. Most of these online sites have the option to upload directly from social networks like Facebook. Walgreens even has an app for uploading your super cool instagram photos without chopping it down to a 4 x 6. Two or three clicks of your mouse and you can upload and buy your photos, have them delivered to your home or go and pick them up.

I am scrapbooker so I usually print out double of the pictures I know I plan to scrap and chop up, and put the other copy as well as all the other un scrapped photos into labeled albums. Seriously people, I'm a full-time working mom, this isn't hard and doesn't take a lot of time to do. Just remember to print out every few weeks, once a month, or every couple of months depending on how many photos you take. Keep them organized.

Beware of the photo books. I've made some and I love them. They're great if you want to document a special event, great vacation or something else needing to be highlighted and you don't scrapbook or don't have the time. But don't think this book replaces the real prints. Make your digital book, and then print out all the pictures separately. You want to have these photos to touch and look through one day. The quality of the pictures isn't the same in the books, and you can't 'use' the picture later on.

Printing at a cheap price is possible! I used shutterfly for a couple of years and took advantage of their discounts on prints every few months. But as I took more and more photos, I needed to print more often than the sales were available. Without the discounts, shutterfly and snapfish and other specialty online photo sites are a bit too pricey for me. Walmart.com is as low as 14 cents a picture, combined with cool editing options and photo products.

So as the summer comes to a close, take the time to scroll through your smart phone's hundreds of pictures of your kid's adventures. Sign in to an online photo site, upload all those awesome memories and click 'print.' Do it for you, do it for your kids, and do it for our old world. It needs real pictures!