Count Down Digital

Count Down Digital
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Pictures represent the story of our lives. They can mark important dates, serve as illustrations of how our relationships have changed, or can help us remember a time in our lives when things were different, either for better or worse. Capturing and organizing all of these special memories has become easier with digital cameras but many people still have hundreds of pictures stored in shoe boxes and closets. The charm of looking through an photo album or beautifully displaying them in decorative picture frames will always be fun, but it's still important to protect your digital and analog pictures so they can never be lost or destroyed.

Get Your Pictures Organized

Digitizing all of your old photos may seem like an insurmountable task, however, you can save yourself time by starting out organized.

The first thing you want to do is make a plan of how you're going to digitize your old photos. For example, you may want to start with the oldest family pictures and do the newest pictures last. Whatever you decide is entirely up to you, however, if you have an organized approach it will make finding them on your hard drive a whole lot easier. And, by doing this you'll also end up organizing your pictures too.

Second, create a brand new photo library or folder on your computer for your new additions. The more organized you keep your photo library or folders the easier it will be to find your pictures when you want them. Once again, the specifics of this are up to you - just make sure you'll be able to navigate them in the future.

Get Gear

If you're planning on digitizing your library entirely on your own, you'll need a good scanner. You can find scanners in a wide range of price and quality so figure out what you need before you start shopping. When shopping for a quality scanner you want a scanner with a good scan resolution so look for one with a 1200dpi minimum. If you scan any pictures under 1200dpi, they're not going to look as good printed because of the low quality resolution. Normally a good quality scanner will cost between $150-300.

It's also a good idea to pick up an external hard drive for backing up your entire digital library. With digital, there is the risk of losing your images so the best thing to do is create multiple backups right away in case anything were to happen. There is nothing worse than having to scan all of your images a second time because you had some sort of hardware failure.

Get Started

Once your photos are lined up and your folders are organized, it's time to get scanning. First thing you want to do is look at how many pictures you have in each section and break them up into smaller manageable sections that you can do in a single sitting. Two hours a night may not sound like much at first, but if you stick to it you'll have a fully-functional digital archive in no time without seriously compromising your free time.

Make sure to do minor corrections to photographs as they are scanned to save time down the line, but avoid the urge to overhaul each and every image. There will be plenty of time to adjust the color balance or hue of each individual photo, but it is easy to lose yourself in this process. Instead, concentrate on things like cropping, rotation and saving the image in the right folder and keep on scanning.

If you don't have time to scan the images yourself, you may want to consider outsourcing the project. Talk with someone at your local photo store that you trust or look at online services that offer this service.

Digitizing your photo library doesn't have to be scary. Simply map out a plan of where to start, and start working on it a little each day and in no time you'll have all of your pictures scanned and wonderfully organized.

Autumn Lockwood is a writer for Your Picture Frames. Shop online and see our selection of unique picture frames in a wide variety of styles, shapes and sizes. Visit our website and see our beautiful unique picture frames or call 800-780-0699.

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