Phhoto storage/organization suggestions, please! (shutterfly, snapfish, online? software?) what do I need!?!!

[Leah_S]

Where do you store your albums and why?   I need suggestions before I pick one and go with it.   I'm very concerned about SITE PERMANENCY (them closing/folding/bankrupt/whatever and my pics and all the hard work organizing etc. going with it).     Perhaps I don't need an online solution.    Maybe there's software out there.      I want to get all my pics off of all my media (SD, CD, etc.) and get them in ONE place where they're organized/accessible/view-able/enjoyable/orderable/shareable.

 

HELP!
 

 

 

[momto10blessings]

Great question, I'm listening in

[J-rap]

We use Shutterfly, and it has worked well for us.  But, I know nothing about others and I'm sure others out there are just as good.  I used to have a Kodak camera, and that enabled us to store photos on the Kodak site.  Then a number of years ago Kodak merged with Shutterfly, so that's why I'm with Shutterfly.  I don't pay anything, and I use their site for making real paper albums, invitations, Christmas cards, etc.  It seems easy to use and I've never had any issues with it. 

[Leah_S]

We use Shutterfly, and it has worked well for us.  But, I know nothing about others and I'm sure others out there are just as good.  I used to have a Kodak camera, and that enabled us to store photos on the Kodak site.  Then a number of years ago Kodak merged with Shutterfly, so that's why I'm with Shutterfly.  I don't pay anything, and I use their site for making real paper albums, invitations, Christmas cards, etc.  It seems easy to use and I've never had any issues with it. 

This is good info as I didn't know Shutterfly was affiliated with Kodak; the fact that Kodak merged with them makes it sound more stable/reputable since Kodak's been in the photo business for eons.

[GailV]

I think (could be wrong) that you can only get your photos from Shutterfly by having Shutterfly print them.  So if they're stored there you can't easily transfer them to other places.

 

I've heard that the standard practice is to not rely on a single location, particularly now that it's relatively easy to have the photo information stored in a compact manner.  You can have them in an offsite location, which could be somewhere in the cloud or on a device not stored in your home (flashdrive or disk would work), plus have a backup in your home (again, could be a flashdrive or disk).  Multiple backups are handy in case something happens to one place.  Like, if your house burns down, you've got them stored in the cloud or a disk at your sister's house; and if Shutterfly (or other service) folds you've also got them stored at your house/sister's house/safe deposit box/wherever.

[Katy]

I'd store them in several places, because anyplace can fold.  And sharing vs ordering is another question entirely. Flickr has unlimited storage now for free, but you should be careful about privacy settings and consider backing up to another place entirely- google drive is free to a certain point.  A lot of photo labs will let you upload photos for free and "share" them with people who might order, but there's no guarantee they will keep them up.

[prairiewindmomma]

If you don't order from shutterfly within a 365 day period, they delete your data and account. They do send you two email warnings.

[5of5]

If you have Amazon Prime, they added a photo storage option, but I don't know much about it.  I agree with the others, though, about needing a back-up location.

[Murmer]

Also you could use a back up service like CrashPlan to store everything including your photos then just use a photo viewer for viewing.  I am a Mac girl and love iPhoto, but I have heard Picasa is good and so is ACDSee.

[Guest]

Dh and I have our phone photos backed up to Dropbox.  I go in about once or twice a month and download them to my computer, then put them on a flash drive.  I like having them in more than one place.

[KatieJ]

I use creative memories manager. Yes they went bankrupt, but my program still works and the pics are backed up on a separate Hardrive.

The company that developed the software is now selling it on their own, plus they are offering some support via a chat forum.

Panstoria.

[Guest]

I don't use "service provider" backup.  I have a 1TB Passport hard drive where I store all my photos, and a network drive (40gazzillionB) where I backup once a month.  THEN I also have a 2TB Passport which I backup to and take to another location (a friend's house).  

 

For display, I have a couple of digital frames and I just randomly copy photos from time to time, as much as each frame will support, onto their respective thumb drives.  

 

I use Lightroom to organize and manage and mess around with my photos, but this is probably overkill for anyone who doesn't have photography at least at a "hobbyist" level of interest.  

[Katy]

I backup the most important ones on a 1TB drive too.  And I try to keep it in the fire safe, but usually it's just attached to the desktop mac in the office.

[Beth S]

I backup the most important ones on a 1TB drive too.  And I try to keep it in the fire safe, but usually it's just attached to the desktop mac in the office.

 

This.

My Christmas gift was a Toshiba 500GB external hard drive, from Amazon. $50.  It's the size of a smartphone.

I'm NOT techy, but I've been transferring our home video (90 hours worth) and all our photos onto it (scanned and digital).

I do plan to store the hard drive in our fire safe, and only use it for videos & photos.

 

I don't really trust the online vendors, and would not want to count on storing them there. 

I guess I also have privacy issues with that as well.

 

And soon the technology will change once again, but I'm really wanting to avoid the heartache of losing these!

[Guest]

I don't know how true this is, but I have read that electronic storage deteriorates over time.  So if you really really would cry if you lost quality on pics and videos, it's probably a good idea to back up to DVD/CD.  That is what I have read.  I myself have not experienced this and am not going to spend that many hours of my life backing up all this stuff that no one is going to care about in less than 40 years.  :0)  Should I live so long. 

 

[Lizzie in Ma]

I have shutterfly, when kodak stopped hosting they all migrated there.

I also keep everything on not one but 2 back up hard drives because I have issues. ;)

They are organized by year and event for quick finding of anything I want.

[Katy]

I don't know how true this is, but I have read that electronic storage deteriorates over time.  So if you really really would cry if you lost quality on pics and videos, it's probably a good idea to back up to DVD/CD.  That is what I have read.  I myself have not experienced this and am not going to spend that many hours of my life backing up all this stuff that no one is going to care about in less than 40 years.  :0)  Should I live so long. 

 

well I can explain that if you want...  it's sort of true and sort of false.

 

jpegs are compressed files, so every time you save something as a jpeg unless you choose to NOT compress the file, you're going to lose data.   So if you're opening photo editing software and crop something and save it, you lose data.  If you go back and add a border and save it again, you lose data.  So if you're a digital scrapbooker and you're using a simple program (or even photoshop), and every time you save something as a jpeg you don't purposelly tell it not to compress the file, you lose data each time you close out of it.  If you compare the original file to the "new" file, you can tell the difference, at least when zoomed in.

 

But if you're just leaving jpegs up on flickr, and you uploaded them at full resolution, and you're not going in and editing them, you're not going to lose anything.  You probably have to know what you're doing in order to save new files as jpegs and not lose info though.