Are Digital Photographs Forever? Part 2

Thanks for reading part 1, or at least I hope you did! :) It was meant to get you thinking, and hopefully gave you some useful information. There are many ways to skin a cat, so the system you implement needs to work for YOU. In this post, I'm going to talk about the second most important thing to do with your photos after backing them up.......MAKE PRINTS!

We all get overwhelmed with the sheer number of images we take (and can't possibly delete) so the thought of deciding which few to make prints of may seem daunting. It's really not that bad, and I'm sure you'll know which ones are print worthy when you see them. The real challenge is just setting aside the time to do it. Again, just like backing up your images, prints are the tangible results of the memories you've been capturing. You'll want to have prints made to pass down the generations, and yes, you should remember to write who, when and where on the back.

Ordering prints online is so easy, my mom can do it! (but not my dad) You can shop around for your favorite lab, and set up a free user account. It's important to remember to set your camera to the correct resolution for prints. If you are using a point and shoot, I recommend putting it on the highest resolution, and least amount of compression. A good print resolution is 300 pixels per inch - a 4x6" print would be 1200x1800 pixels. I still have to point out to my mom that photos need to be much smaller for emails (72ppi) - a 4x6" image on the web would be 288x432 pixels.

Most image editing software will allow you to resize an image for print or internet, but not all are sophisticated enough to let you add keywords or metadata. As I mentioned in Part 1, The DAM Book has a wealth of information on organizing and storing digital images. The cool thing about software such as PhotoShop, Lightroom, and Aperture are that they allow you to edit the metadata of each image.

Metadata is information stored withing each digital image file, such as who created it, the date, location, contact and copyright information, and much more. There is also a section for adding keywords. These can be any words that describe the photograph, which will be useful when you have thousands and just want to find a few from the lake, for example. You might add key words separated by commas such as: lake, boat, water, summer, etc..... Then, when you catalog your images using a cataloging application such as Microsoft Expression Media, you can type your keyword as a search term and it will quickly pull up the few images you are looking for with those words. Another advantage to editing your metadata is that you can you can enter a description of who is in the photo, and any other relevent information - it's kinda like writing on the back of the photo!

I hope this information has been helpful, and got your gears turning. Please leave comments and/or email questions if you have any!