Computer Services

If you have a digital camera and take a bunch of photos, you’ll need a good photo management program that will allow you to download, organize and edit these photos on your computer. Once you have your photo management system in place and you’ve stored years’ worth of photos, you want to protect your important photos against hardware or user problems. Here are some tips for both…

ORGANIZE YOUR PHOTOS
You can purchase photo management software or you can dowload Picasa for FREE. I’ve been using Picasa for about a year now and have really enjoyed it. Plus, it’s a Google product and has earned Editor’s Choice rating from PC Magazine. Some of the key features I think you’ll enjoy are:

• Ease of use photo management
  • Organize photos using keywords, using folder structure, etc.
  • Drag and drop photos from one location to another.
  • Rotate photos and reorder them easily
• Intuitive and useful editing controls
  • Remove redeye
  • Crop photo to improve composition
  • Modify lighting (e.g. contrast, fill light, brightness, etc.)
  • Straighten out a crooked photo
  • Edits are recorded for Picasa to use/display and original photo remains safely untouched.
• Integration to online tools
  • Email selected photos to friends easily
  • Upload to Picasa Web Albums (more on this below)

PROTECT YOUR PHOTOS
Once you have your photos organized and edited just the way you like it, you’ll want to protect your photos from disaster. I recommend backing up your photos, but there are various solutions for accomplishing this task with different pros and cons. You can backup your photos to another location on your hard drive, to a cd or dvd or to an online service. While any backup is better than none, here is what you can expect with each:

• Hard Drive
  • PROS: Very fast backup, convenient, doesn’t require additional resources outside of your computer.
  • CONS: Must have a large enough hard drive for two copies (original plus backup), doesn’t protect against hard drive failure, not shareable with others.
• CD or DVD
  • PROS: Inexpensive, easily add more capacity with more CDs or DVDs as collection grows, portable.
  • CONS: Doesn’t protect against fire in your home unless CDs/DVDs are taken off site, can become scratched, broken or lost.
• Online
  • PROS: Safe from disaster at your home, easily share with friends and family, additional features available with online services.
  • CONS: Slow copying (especially if you do not have broadband Internet access), limited space for photos before you must pay, requires Internet access during copy process, perception of security concerns.

Given these choices, I recommend exploring the online method. My two primary reasons for this are for sharing with others and having an off site copy. There are very reputable online providers offering this service. Two that I’d recommend are Flickr.com by Yahoo! and Picasa Web Albums by Google. Both offer free space, but Picasa Web Albums integrates into Picasa. You can also set permissions to allow only people you know to view certain photos.