Do you have about 13895310 million photos sitting on your hard drive or phone? SAME HERE. But if those photos mean anything to you, you're going to want to actually do something with them. So here are five ways you can get the most out of those photos!
1. Back it up
This is the first thing you need to do once you get your files! Put them on your computer, then back it up to a secondary source. It could be a cloud service like Google Drive, or an external hard drive, your spouse’s laptop, or a USB flash drive. This way, if your one storage crashed or something happened to it, you’d still have a backup for those precious memories.
2. Make an album
Have something tangible and compact for you to flip through! This is perfect to display on your bookshelf or leave out on the coffee table. Pro Tip: You do NOT need to add every single photo from a session into the album! If you had a lifestyle session, make sure there is a variety of shots and the ones that really show your personality. And they do not need to be arranged chronologically.
If you had a storytelling family session, it’s best to do it chronologically and put in enough photos so you can follow the story. If this sounds overwhelming, let me take care of it for you!
3. Print them small
Ahhh loose prints—nostalgic, right?! This is perfect for those who love flipping through boxes of prints, just like the ones you find in your attic. These are also great if you love displaying a lot of small prints around the house, plus they’re easy to bring to work if you want it at your desk!
4. Print them big
Decorate your walls with the people you love most! Reach out to your photographer for the best quality! They may have the option of framed prints or opt for canvas if that’s the look you like! The quality of their lab is archival which means the prints will last longer. When you use a low quality printer, those professional photos you spent money on will look just like all everyone else's iPhone pictures due to poor color calibration and color casts (fancy terms for: they won't look the way they do on your screen aka orange skin, red eyes, etc.).
5. Send out cards
Everyone loves cards! Holidays and birth announcements are definitely the most common. There are many online labs that offer this, where you can select one of their templates and put your photos on there! For cards, because they are meant to last a season, I don't worry too much about archival quality. I love seeing which photos families choose for their cards!
This post is written by NH Family and Newborn Photographer in New Hampshire. She serves Seacoast NH towns like Portsmouth, Durham, Dover, Exeter, Seabrook. Based in Rochester, New Hampshire, she also photographs Maine families around Kittery and York Maine and Berwick. These family and newborn photoshoots around New Hampshire and Maine can be lifestyle or documentary. In this post NH family photographer gives tips on how to get the most of your digital files from your family photo shoot around Seacoast NH and Maine.