We take so many pictures now. I know I certainly do. It's hard to decide what is the best way to store the thousands of pictures we take, especially since people don't really print pictures now until we need to put one in a frame or for a school project!
I am not particular about SO many things. But for some reason I have stayed on top of the photo storage. It's probably because I started a Shutterfly account before I had kids, so it just made sense for me to keep using it. This is how I manage the bazillions of photos I take every week...
www.shutterfly.com is a website with free unlimited photo storage. You can order prints, photo books, Christmas cards, all sorts of things from there. I mostly use it for the storage, but by default I usually end up ordering my prints from there as well. I have the free app on my iPhone, which is super convenient. I store my photos on the website by year, then month. At the end of each day, or sometimes at the end of the week, I pull up my Shutterfly app and load the photos from the day/week to the album I've created labeled September 2015 (or whatever month/year it is).
Usually, after that, I delete the pictures off my phone, unless I know I plan to add them to a post on my personal blog - more on that next. I also have a nice DSLR camera that is a little more trouble, but the pictures are infinitely better. I do the same thing when I am starting to run out of room on my memory card for what I call my "Big Camera". I just load the pictures onto the website from my laptop into the folder for the month that the photos were actually taken (not for when I get around to loading them ;)..). I can delete the photos from my memory card if I am finished with them. Even if I think I am and I'm really not, the pictures can always be accessed by visiting Shutterfly after that. I love that my phone and Big Camera's memory stick usually have plenty of space because I clear them off frequently. The downside is that if you try to save that photo from Shutterfly onto your computer and print from another company, the quality is not nearly as good as ordering the original image from Shutterfly. I have probably spent more money by having to order from that company than others, but it's worth it to me to know my photos are there.
The other great thing about it is that if you need a photo in an hour, Walgreen's, Target and CVS photo are all partnered with Shutterfly so you can pull up those pictures and have them printed in an hour. So far, I think they only print 4x6 photos in the one-hour photo places. If you need larger prints, you'd have to order from the website and wait a few days. It's been a nice feature that I've used several times.
I keep up a private blog as well, mostly with pictures of our kids and dogs and personal events. I have the Blogger app on my phone and usually post from there, but sometimes I use my laptop. I load my photos to Google Plus because I ran out of storage a long time ago and that was the only way Blogger would allow me to continue adding photos without paying a monthly fee. I've had that blog going since 2007, so three kids and thousands of pictures later, it's pretty full of info. I use Blurb.com to order a Family Yearbook where all of those photos and entries from my personal blog are printed into a very nice (rather thick) hard back book. I have only completed two years of that and would really like to catch up, but it's time consuming, and it's not cheap. I will share more about that process one day.
For now, I hope that helped a little with ideas about storing your digital photos. I love taking pictures. I have a horrific memory and taking photos helps me remember things. I also think pictures end up being priceless once time has passed and you can never have too many. Maybe don't share all of them with the entire world, but keep taking them!
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