Jump to content

Menu

S/o...do you still print photos?


alisoncooks
 Share

Recommended Posts

So this is a s/o of a s/o thread... ?

The clutter thread that mentioned photo albums got me thinking. I like having physical photos to look at, so while I keep digital albums, I still order photos. My SIL orders photo books a few times a year...but those can be expensive and don't usually hold enough photos. Plus, I don't care to "arrange" them. 

Do you still print photos and put them in albums? Is that terribly outdated?  What's the alternative?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I do.

I keep Project Life albums--I take (at least) one photo that captures a story in our lives every day, then print it out and usually journal something about it. It's my favorite, and to me most meaningful, type of life documenting. 

I have never and will never look back at digital albums or photos. It's print for me or it didn't happen. :)

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don’t. I have 7,066 photos on my phone currently, some more older photos on my older iPod touch. 

My aunts would print some to put into photo frames. So I would send some photos of my kids to my aunts who requested and they pick which one they want to print for their photo frames. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I still print and put in albums.  We have one album per year for every year since we were married - eek, that's a lot of albums!  The kids love looking through them but they never print their own.  I never look at them electronically but enjoy them in the albums but the do take up a lot of space now.  

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't print photos for myself.  I will sometimes print one to frame for the grandparents or to include in Christmas cards or for the kids' art projects ....  But generally no, I would rather have them organized digitally where they take no space in my limited corner of the world.

I do have some old ones which I intend to digitize someday so they are easier to share and otherwise use in creative ways.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My issue is also that I never ever look at digital photos unless I'm looking for something.  And, we have lost some early digital photos, which makes me sad.  I enjoy going through and old photos album from time to time.   I remember as a child pouring over old photos my mom had.  I would do it several times a year.  I still have some of those photos etched in my memory.  

I never scrapbooked and never saw the appeal.  I just wanted to look at photos... not all the do-dads and decorations that come with scrapbooking.  Plus, those are so much bigger and there's hardly any photos in them, compared to a regular photo album.  

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, alisoncooks said:

Do you still print photos and put them in albums? Is that terribly outdated?  What's the alternative?

 

I don't usually, but I printed photos for my kids' graduation photo-boards, and I am putting those into albums for them. Since my youngest graduated 1.5 years ago, I hope to finish the albums by Christmas, LOL!

Otherwise I make albums from digital photos and have the album printed so we can look through. I'm behind with those too though...

Edited by MerryAtHope
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Partially what got me thinking on this was spending 2 hours Sunday afternoon sorting pictures. I had photos on my phone from 2015. (Now I've cleared out everything pre-2017.) I saved them all to my desktop...but was debating what to do next. Print? Cloud? Idk. 

I printed pictures for albums regularly when my girls were small. I haven't in 3-4 years. But I did make photo books of our Disney trip last year, and books about the dog, when he died 2 years ago. So I have done that!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I sometimes still print and plan to start printing more photos. I've had too many digital disasters and I enjoy looking at physical photos. I used to do lots of scrapbooking, but I stopped when I started homeschooling and got busy with life. The other day I took some athlete photos that had been sitting around for a year and made a few simple scrapbook pages. My dd was so thrilled and I remembered how much I enjoyed the hands-on creative hobby, especially a hobby that doesn't feel useless because it saves family memories. One of my goals in the next year is to get photos out of boxes and off the computer and get back to doing some scrapbooking.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I print photos when I am motivated, but I don't generally put them in albums. I'm working on putting a few albums together digitally and then having them printed.

I figure having a few loose prints around is good, in case something happens to my computer and back-up, and I lose all my pictures.

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I still get prints. I'm committed to finishing my kids' scrapbooks (through high school graduation and/or off to college) and our family album through youngest's departure for college. I think I'll continue to do a few pages every year in our Christmas scrapbook, but I mostly plan to retire from scrapbooking if I ever get caught up!

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't.  I used to when I had a good printer and could print them myself, but I don't anymore because I don't ever keep up on albums.  I do get photos printed to hang on the wall sometimes.  Mostly it is special pictures of my kids.  I have a few that I still need to have printed and framed of my DD's senior pictures and one that I would like framed that my MIL took of me holding my youngest when he was a newborn.

My mom and dad still print pictures.  My mom has an album of each of her grandchildren.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

No. We print a calendar each year for the grandparents. All our photos are digital and archived in a library that allows me to find everything quickly. We have backups in multiple locations. For big hiking/climbing trips, I compile trip reports with photos and post them on the hiking website I run.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, mom2scouts said:

I sometimes still print and plan to start printing more photos. I've had too many digital disasters and I enjoy looking at physical photos. I used to do lots of scrapbooking, but I stopped when I started homeschooling and got busy with life. The other day I took some athlete photos that had been sitting around for a year and made a few simple scrapbook pages. My dd was so thrilled and I remembered how much I enjoyed the hands-on creative hobby, especially a hobby that doesn't feel useless because it saves family memories. One of my goals in the next year is to get photos out of boxes and off the computer and get back to doing some scrapbooking.

Are you familiar with Project Life? 

https://beckyhiggins.com/project-life/

Also called pocket scrapbooking, it's such a simple way to organize photos--you can be as creative as you want, or keep it super simple, but either way it gets *done*. I'm a former traditional scrap booker, but this is the method I've been using for years and I can't imagine going back.

Just thought I'd mention it as an alternative for anyone interested in getting their photos organized but feel overwhelmed. 

Also, you can have pages digitally printed out (I got caught up on several years that way in just a couple weekends--and the quality is fantastic), or print photos yourself. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I do photo books that I create online (Picaboo is my favorite), and I print select photos for framing. 

Picaboo has self-filling options (you upload the photos, it puts them in for you), or you can arrange yourself, and you can add as many pages as needed to get as many photos as needed. They get expensive if you get tons of pages, but they have great coupons to counter-balance that.  We love having the printed books to look at. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My goal is to organize, write names and hopefully dates on the back of my billions of physical photos then get them in photo albums. I have some albums I want..slide pictures in with lines on the side. 

Then finish printing and doing the same with what isn't printed yet.  

Edited by Baseball mom
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, MEmama said:

Are you familiar with Project Life? 

https://beckyhiggins.com/project-life/

Also called pocket scrapbooking, it's such a simple way to organize photos--you can be as creative as you want, or keep it super simple, but either way it gets *done*. I'm a former traditional scrap booker, but this is the method I've been using for years and I can't imagine going back.

Just thought I'd mention it as an alternative for anyone interested in getting their photos organized but feel overwhelmed. 

Also, you can have pages digitally printed out (I got caught up on several years that way in just a couple weekends--and the quality is fantastic), or print photos yourself. 

I used to old school scrapbook, then I moved to Project Life....and now I'm ready just to do the softbound digital albums from Costco... The Project Life albums are so bulky.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I print but not all of them. 

I definitely prefer printed photos in the long-term, but love that we take them digitally first and then decide what to print. Digital is also great for people like dh who love to take numerous pics of animals on every trip to the zoo. Honey, we already know what elephants look like! ?

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I print a few special ones now and then and put them in frames.  I take digital photos from special trips or events and make them into a book on a site like Shutterfly.  They're not bulky and they'll last.  My old photo albums that actually have printed photos stuck into them are bulky, falling apart, and the colors are fading.  I'm so glad I have alternatives.

I also have hundreds and hundreds of other digital photos that I don't know what to do with!

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't but sometimes the kids do for framing or crafts. My mom keeps asking me for some "handhelds" of the family even though she can see them all on facebook. I need to sit down and figure out how to send some to the Walgreen's near her house to be printed. Then she can pick them up. I tried it with the phone app but something went wrong. I think it could tell that I was not local or even in the same country. Pre-digital, we double printed everything and have shoe boxes full somewhere upstairs. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

46 minutes ago, CAJinBE said:

I don't but sometimes the kids do for framing or crafts. My mom keeps asking me for some "handhelds" of the family even though she can see them all on facebook. I need to sit down and figure out how to send some to the Walgreen's near her house to be printed. Then she can pick them up. I tried it with the phone app but something went wrong. I think it could tell that I was not local or even in the same country. Pre-digital, we double printed everything and have shoe boxes full somewhere upstairs. 

 

I haven't tried sending them remotely, but the snapfish app lets you choose to have the pictures picked up at a Walgreens or Walmart.

And I know you can choose which location at Sam's Club to pick up photos bc when we lived in Oklahoma I chose a Sam's Club more than an hour away from the closest one just because I was going to be in that area later that day; I bet Walmart itself lets you do that too.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I use digital scrapbooking software to make a photo book every year (and usually a separate vacation book too). My books are very plain, not a lot of doodads and whatnot, I like to fit as many photos on a page as possible, but I do like being able to pick a background color instead of stark white paper and put in a text box to journal about the photos.

My kids get them out to look at them at least once a month, sometimes more. They are much skinnier than traditional photo albums and don't take up as much room.

I never look at the photos on my phone once I post them to facebook.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A lot of good thoughts here! Someone mentioned looking at albums when they were younger-- yes! I have fond memories of flipping through old albums with my little brother.

I used to keep some in our living room, and the girls liked looking at them, but I relocated them one Christmas and they never returned to their spot. I need to make an effort to have them accessible for my kids!

Photo albums are bulky. Maybe print photo books are the way to go...but there is something about having an actual photograph to hold. Hmmm....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I print some photos a few times a year for grandparents. I also bought each of my kids a large photo album and print a few photos here and there so they have some. I don’t print a ton of pictures. I keep saying I’m going to do a photo book per year so we have some physical copies of pictures, but I never get around to it. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Rachel said:

I print some photos a few times a year for grandparents. I also bought each of my kids a large photo album and print a few photos here and there so they have some. I don’t print a ton of pictures. I keep saying I’m going to do a photo book per year so we have some physical copies of pictures, but I never get around to it. 

I'm quoting you but really this is for everyone who has a backlog of digital photos that we want to get into an album but feel overwhelmed doing so.

I know I already mentioned Project Life up thread, but I just wanted to give an idea of the pages one can create digitally (no software needed--just the free app). I seriously managed to get through 3 years of photos in a couple of weekends--when I was done creating pages I just sent away for printing and had them delivered. There's no way I could gotten that many done by hand.

A couple examples to show a few variations--there are tons of ways to lay out a page. It's just drag and drop.

eta removed the page examples.

 

 

Edited by MEmama
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...