Picture Imperfect

As featured in The Gazette on Monday, April 21, 2008:

Pictures are worth a thousand words only if you can find them. Get organized so those precious memories are at your fingertips instead of tossed in a shoe box or floating around your computer's hard drive.

Sort it out -- Weather prints or digital images, start by sorting photos and catergorizing them by year. Chronological order is the most efficient way to organize. Five or ten years from now you may not remember who was at the party, where it was or the theme, but (hopefully) you'll recall the year.

A book, not the cover -- Look for archival quality albums and storage boxes. That means they are made of acid-free paper and won't deteriorate images. Sorry, that means shoe boxes are out.

Pick and choose -- Be ruthless. It is OK to throw away a blurry photo taken at your son's first birthday party. Chances are you have a dozen more just like it. No need to keep all those duplicates. Pick your favorites and toss the rest. Better yet, share fabulous copies with friends and family.

Not so negative -- Sure, you can always make a reprint from a print, but it won't be the same quality. Despite the digital revolution, never toss negatives. Stash them in labeled envelopes with their coordinating prints or store them separately in inexpensive negative pages. Label them with the year and roll number. Then write (with a ballpoint pen, not a felt tip) the roll number on the back of the print for quick recall.

Back it up -- A hard drive can (and someday will) crash. Routinely back up your digital images on CDs or DVDs. Label them by year. If you don't have a digital camera, buy a disk when you get your film developed.

Compact storage -- Always make two disks. Store one set near the computer. Keep the other in another location, preferrably a dark closet. Light will eventually erase data on the discs. Disks also fit in photo boxes.

Computer clutter -- The best way to organize digital images is in chronological order. Most prgrams will automatically label images according to the date you uploaded them. Take advantage of the other features that let you tag the photos. They'll still be stored according to date, but you'll also be able to find them by looking for key words like "beach" or "Uncle Bob."

Digital overload -- Be picky about the digital images you keep. Upload them all to your computer (an 18-inch screen is better to analyze an image than a 2-inch one) then delete those with blurred faces or red-eyes. If you don't, it won't take long before your computer's memory is eaten up with images.

Online only -- If you know you're never going to be religious about making backup copies, at least store your images at an online photo site like Snapfish.com or Kodak's Gallery. Some sites charge a small fee. Others are free.

Memory dump -- Don't wait for your 2GB memory card to fill up before you upload your pictures. Memory cards can be erased when exposed to an electrical charge, like the static in your pocket.

Source: Stu Eddins, General Manager, Porter's Camera, Cedar Rapids
Gazette graphic/text by Carly Weber; design by Jim Riley
Copyright 2008

April Event

We decided to take a field trip in April instead of hosting a crop. We attended the MWSA Scrapbook Convention in Des Moines today. We all had lots of fun while shopping and creating Make-N- Takes. We also made a trip to Archivers and ate at Cracker Barrel. Check out our photos in our event album (link located in the menu on the right side of our blog).

We had a door prize winner in our group at the expo. Sara Walker, from Coralville, won a goodie bag from Walnut Place Retreat.

Our next event will be May 3 for our National Scrapbook Day Crop in Evansdale. Click the link in the menu to the right for more information.