For the really great pictures, I do print them out either by going to Woodman's or through shutterfly.com. I've also made some really neat photo books through Shutterfly and always hear really positive comments from anyone who looks at them. The website makes it super easy to design and the prices aren't horrible.

Steve,
I still do prints. I really enjoy having prints of the family and events all over the fridge as well as albums of our memories. Face book is nice to share with family and friends. Walgreen's has a nice online photo service -
I use that all the time. I also have a TB external to save a back-up. Can you believe the cost of memory these days - my syquest cost me a fortune back in the day!

My "Who does backups?" was an attempt at humor. Be aware that no media is really going to survive more than 5 years or so, except quality physical photos, some of which are over 150 years old. CDs and DVDs are usually good for 5 years. The jury is still out on flash drives since they have only recently become widespread...manufacturers claims aside, I wouldn't trust them more than 5 years. Experts advise doing a media refresh every 5 years or so, i.e. copy them to fresh media. And for all that do backup, just remember that the burglar who robs you gets your originals and backups, including those "umm...special" photos. So have a backup off-site, maybe in a lock box with someone trusted, in case of fire or burglary.

Funny you should ask ... I gave a 10-year-old girl a scrapbooking kit and a couple disposable cameras for her birthday. Now I have to get the film developed. I was laughing at myself for thinking what a chore it was to have to physically go inside a store to drop off film.

The kids in my household have been really into printed photos lately.

Ann Marie Ames

I print memorable photos, mostly of special occasions and vacations. Partly for the ease of picking up a photo album and re-living the memories, partly to share with the older generation that doesn't live digitally!

Beware of burnable CDs or DVDs, they only have a shelf life of 5-10 years until the data begins to corrupt.

Yes forgot to add you can get a disc for $1 iss at Woodmans. Sorry cannot remember the costs to well.

Most are still on the memory stick or on flash drive. Just plug it into the tv or computer and go. Have printed some of them at Woodmans. 8 cents each I think. WAY cheaper than regular film printing.

Hubby says that I don't need to print them because that is why they are digital. However, I do miss flipping through photo albums and one can't carry their computer with at all times to show others...(well yes they could carry a laptop but you know what I mean....ha ha)I do however print out the special ones and the ones that need to go to my folks who do not do digital pics... I save them to my hard drive and then also burn to a disk and last year after having yet another computer crash finally bought the external hard drive and do back ups occassionally just in case.... That reminds me after I download the recent ones from my camera I need to do another one! :)

I print the good ones, and keep all the digital images to disk, either CD or DVD. All my film negatives and slides have been converted to disk, and are now in "archival storage" containers. My "good" digital images are mailed to a free Google mail account for storage. ( if that fills up, just open another one)

You can also burn a CDROM copy.

Every photo I've taken has two backups - the original on my computer hard drive, plus two external drives. When you can get 1.5 TB for $75 or so, it's well worth it. 10,000+ digital pictures since 2004 and I've never lost a single one.

What are digital photos?

Don't be so quick to give up on that old hard drive.
With a little effort, you may be able to access those files long enough to copy them.

yep we still print pics here, mainly for the 4H record books, and some for the wall, Otherwise they are all on disks. I try not to keep any on the computer anymore, I have seen too many people lose them all when it crashed.

"But who does backups?"
Those that have lost pictures to a hard drive crash. Backup drives are cheap and easy to use. I highly recommend them. Especially after that fateful date in October 2004...

I love photo albums and have each picture dated with first and last names on them. Many are from the sixties on up. I also love my digital camera and have pictures made to put in my albums from it. I also back them all up on disc.

To prevent loss of digital photos, you can back them up to an external hard drive. But who does backups? You can also use Picasa, a Google service, which allows tagging. Myself, I just email them to my Gmail account.