Photos to Delete or Toss Right Away

We all keep pictures. I've even heard people say it's bad luck to toss a photo of someone. I don't think that's true, personally. And, there are tons of pictures we hang on to when we could easily let them go. Here's what you can get rid of today:

• Blurry images
• You have multiple shots of the same thing
• You can’t remember who it is in the actual photo
• If it is a generic or classic picture (of Mount Rushmore for example), unless there’s something really distinguished about that picture (you're standing in front of Mount Rushmore or there’s an amazing rainbow behind it)
• If there’s a memory in a photo that you don’t necessarily want to remember, give yourself permission to toss it

Some Ideas on Printing and Storing Digital Photos

Ideas!

You can print digital photos to give them as gifts or to give to someone who maybe doesn't have easy access to technology.

If you would like to print standard sized photos (4x6 or 3x5), you can do so in your home on a regular printer. All you need is to buy some photo paper and you're good to go! If you would like to have certain photos displayed in your home, you can have those printed professionally at a photo printing service if you don't own a photo printer.

One way to organize photos digitally is to create albums on your computer. You can label those albums by date and/or by event so that you know when and what they are when looking back. You can also use a scanner to put already printed photos onto your computer, and then add those into their respective digital albums.

Sometimes you don't want to print certain photos; maybe they spark a certain memory or a time in life that is hard to look back on. That's okay. You are free to toss those or put them in a designated spot that isn't as easy to find if you'd like. I'm giving you permission to get rid of them!

Good luck!

Digitizing Media Other Than Photos

Here are some ideas if you have old tapes that you'd like to be digitized:

If you have home videos in VHS, film, or cassette forms, you'll want to take those to a professional digitizing service to get them digitized. You'll want to do this to ensure that you don't lose the content. Film strips do deteriorate over time so it's better to get them digitized sooner rather than later. Plus, not many of us have old Betamaxes or laser disc players lying around anymore. Most digitizing services will not digitize anything other than homemade content.

If you have content that is on a CD or DVD already, such as music or movies, consider putting that content into the Cloud. Then, if your CD or DVD player breaks or you lose the actual disk, you have a copy of it somewhere else.

      Also, most laptops and computers that are made today do not have an internal disk drive to insert DVDs or CDs for playback. I'd recommend purchasing an external disk drive that connects by USB so that you can plug it into your computer and view your content or listen to your music.

   
     

Photos, Photos, and More Photos!

There are various options for storing photos.

You can purchase photo albums if you have lots of 4x6 or 3x5 standard sized printed photos. You can also store these photos in a photo box. Label the box or the outside of the album with dates of when the photos were taken.

You can also get photos digitized, and put them in a photo frame or onto your computer.

If you have lots of unusually sized photos or Polaroids, you can buy sheet protectors (at any office supply store or big box store), and put them in a three ring binder. Insert the photos into the sheet protectors and voila! Labeling the outside of the binder with dates or events would be a great idea as well.