When is the last time you saw someone use a film camera?  Yeah, me too!  Back when you used a film camera you probably looked through your developed photos, picked out the best to go into an album and then tossed the envelope with the rest of the photos and negatives into a shoebox in the closet.   Now, you offload your digital photos onto your computer, click through them and post the best on Facebook or email them to grandma. But where do you go from there?

There are lots of ways to deal with digital photos, many of them excellent options, so I am not saying there is a right or a wrong way to go. In the interest of simplicity,  I am focussing on the programs and websites that I personally use to manage, backup, and store my digital photos.

By the way, all of these options work with Macs, iPads, and iPhones as was as with Windows and Android devices.  If you'd like some help setting any of this up, call me to schedule an appointment!

It can take a while to get all your photos up on Flickr, but once you do you can create both public and private albums, sharing as much or as little as you like of your photos with family and friends.  It's a bit of effort but it's certainly worth it to have a free, offsite, complete backup of your digital photos. 

In the past few years I have found myself taking more and more pictures with my phone, and I am not the only one.  Both iPhones and Android phones come with decent built in cameras, and it's very convenient to only carry one device. However, transferring the pictures from your phone to your other devices can be a pain in the neck.  My solution is to use Dropbox and its automatic camera upload application.

Dropbox is a cloud based file sharing program, which people use for many different reasons, but none are simpler than using its iPhone or Android app to automatically upload every photo you take to your Dropbox account.  Simply sign up for an account, install the application on your phone, and tell it you wish to use the camera uploader.  You can either log into your Dropbox account from any computer to view your photos, or you can install Dropbox on your PC or tablet and open the Dropbox folder there to see and transfer pictures.

Dropbox starts you off with 2 GB of storage for free, but you can earn more by following various steps such as  referring friends to the service.  If you decide you want to try it, click on this referral link to sign up, and you and I will each get an additional 500 MB of Dropbox storage space when you install the application on your computer!