Photos as Memories: How to Save, Protect, and Organize Your Pictures
Imagine for a moment you and your family are at the beach. You look up and see the beautiful blue sky, feel the warm breeze on your face from the most perfect day, you hear your family’s laughter and you are overwhelmed with joy in that moment.
You gather the family together for a picture so you always remember how perfect this moment in time is. Everyone including you is in their happy place, no worries and no stress is invading anyone right now. Nothing could ruin this moment.
Everyone smiles for the camera and takes the perfect shot of the most memorable day!
So now you have this great memory and this one you want to make more special than just throwing it in a photo album. No. This one needs more special treatment to really be celebrated because it was such a great day and great memory!
Memories are very special because you can’t get the memory back once it's gone but you can get the most out of it so the memory stays alive. Memories that make us smile are the building blocks that make us human. We go to work each day, we eat and drink and pursue our dreams so that we can live our best life. If we didn’t have any recollection of our daily pursuits, our efforts wouldn't matter.
When we go through life with our loved ones by our sides, we are in search of what makes us happy. Maybe you and your family like to go to a professional ball game or luxury vacation, hiking together, camping, traveling.
Whatever it may be, we do things with loved ones to savor the moments we have together. It is a bookmark in our book of life that brings us joy in celebration of being alive together. It should be savored because its your one chance to enjoy and remember the great life you have been given.
5 Tips To Make Your Photo Memory More Memorable
Here are 5 tips that will help you get the most of your photos captured so that perfect moment that you captured doesn't get lost in time.
#1 - Convert to Digital
One of the first steps to keeping your memories alive is by storing them digitally so you don’t ever lose them. Once you store it digitally, it can be sent to someone to be printed or even enhanced and artistically recreated (more on this later).
If for any reason the precious photo is ruined in a fire or flood, you will always know you can make many copies of it if its securely saved.
How do I save photos digitally?
Good question! There are lots of ways to save them.
SmartPhone: You can either take a snapshot of them with a smartphone or device that has a decent photo taking capability. The newest phones pretty much all have super good quality and they should get a decent shot of the image.
Few tips on taking photos of photos:
- Good lighting - Not too bright, Not too dark
- Straight on Shot - Try to avoid too wild of angles, keep it in frame
- Avoid Reflections - Try not to get bright light reflections or you photobombing
- Take it out of the frame - If the photo is inside of a frame, take it out for best results
Scanner: If your printer at home comes with a scanner, this is the absolute BEST way to get the perfect resolution, lighting and framing. However, not everyone has a scanner at home and if you don’t and you don’t plan on saving lots of images to digital then its best to just take a photo of it.
Local Service: If neither of those options work for you, there is always a print shop or even a walmart could get the job done. Usually these places charge a tiny fee to scan it and give you a digital copy of it. Alot of the times they will even have print facilities on site as well.
#2 - Enhance Your Photos
There are services that will take your old photos, even damaged photos and restore them to look brand new! This can be a lifesaver for obvious reasons but imagine reviving an old photo that you thought was damaged for good. It’s a great service and once you have a revived photo you can get it printed larger, or even get it artistically enhanced (More on this soon - stay tuned)
This is a perfect way to keep a memory alive from long ago. We have come a long way with technology so we are no longer burdened with having to keep boxes of photos and worrying that they will get damaged.
Backing up your photos is very important but restoring them to look newer even if its an extremely old photo is priceless.
Here is a great service we found that does very good work with photo restoration. They pay close attention to bringing back the good qualities of the photo that have been lost over time.
#3 - Storing Your Photos
Once you have captured and converted your images to digital and maybe even had them enhanced, next is to store them for safe keeping. Storing digital photos securely is a must if you want to hang on to those memories for a long time and keep them in good shape.
Also once they are stored, you can keep using them over and over again and access them to be printed or manipulated however you like. But the most important part is you will always have them and not lose the precious memories you have gathered.
What is the best photo storage options
External Storage - Usually a flash usb drive which can be as small as a thumbnail drive or as large as an external storage device. Either way both devices can have alot of space on them. The only issue with external storage is that they can be damaged in a fire or lost during moving, etc.
Online Storage - Google drive, dropbox, amazon photos, apple storage, these are all good options to back up your photos online. They are all reliable companies that are probably not going anywhere anytime soon. Most of them charge a fee but the good thing is you can access your storage from any smart device. Also you don’t run the risk of losing the drive or it getting damaged. This option is preferred by us!
#4 - Organizing Your Photos
Now that you have your favorite photos taken and stored in safekeeping, you can now get organized! Most of the storage devices we mentioned earlier will have them stored in chronological order and some of them even allow you to sort them by alphabet if you have them named.
Also they do let you add folders to the drive so you can even organize them by occasion or event, etc. Let's say you had this great day at the beach and you took 100 pics that day and you wanted it separated from everyday life, you could name the folder BEACH DAY 2022 so you could quickly reference that day's photos.
Most storage devices will allow all types of files, even pdfs audio files and movie files so organization is a great way to keep everything tidy and easily accessible. Otherwise chronological order would just cause confusion once you get lots of files in the storage drive.
#5 - Transform your photos into Art!
There are some GREAT services online (like ahem… HomeHaps.com :)
We take any of your beautiful memories on photo and transform it into art! There are several different options that we supply to help spruce up your photos as well as your home decor!
Here are a few great options that are sure to shed some happy tears to you or a loved one.
Watercolor Portrait from Photo
Our top pick for personalized gifts whether it be for someone you love or even to decorate your own home is our best selling watercolor portrait. We take your precious memory and our artist’s watercolor paint over the subjects in the photo to create a timeless piece that will be cherished forever.
We send it to you for final approval and then it takes one day to print and ship it out. Shipping usually takes about 3-5 days on average for standard shipping and we package it with the utmost care protecting the corners from damage and wrapping it in plastic to ensure no water damage. To take it a step further, we even fully cover any damage done in transit so if it arrives damaged, no worries! We send out a replacement asap!
This photo to canvas print makes the perfect gift if you really want that super special gift that they will always treasure. Studies show that most gifts get tossed in a drawer and the smaller percentage of gifts that actually get used don’t get used nearly as long as those that get hung on a wall.
This picture painting WILL be the most memorable gift you can get the ones you love. Its great for ANY occasion and it will make them smile each time they look at it. That is why this personalized watercolor portrait gets our top pick.
Watercolor portraits are the favorite, however, there are some photos that just work best with a good oil painted look. These oil painting portraits also work really well at capturing the moment. Sometimes the moment is a little less subtle such as just a great wedding day photo.
Possibly even a great family photo in their best clothes to hang over the mantle. A portrait that captures the essence of the strong family you have built and are proud of. Self portraits or family portraits have been painted since the beginning of mankind to celebrate family accomplishments.
There are other moments in life that are celebrated in different ways. Such as your 12 year olds summer camping trip with friends. This would be more appropriately hung in his / her room as a pencil sketch portrait rather than a watercolor portrait. Watercolor portraits are more for the sentimental occasion or memory.
Pencil sketch portraits capture the memory in time but are more in the rustic and grungy sort of way to give a custom gift for him. Possibly more masculine or playful than an oil painting or watercolor painting. As with all of our canvas portraits they all get finished with a semi gloss coating that protects the beautiful vibrant colors and is guaranteed not to fade for 200 plus years. Making it truly a gift to last for a lifetime!
Conclusion
Be sure to cherish each and every moment you are given in this life because tomorrow is not a guarantee. We made it our mission to celebrate life's greatest moments with our customers. We hope this article has been helpful in getting your photo memories organized and protected.