Sympathy Pain

I love my digital camera. I use it for work, at home, wherever. I have one on my cell phone. They are really handy. I can take over one hundred shots on my camera before I have to dump them somewhere. It’s awesome.

So I have hundreds of pictures…on my computer…which isn’t very handy to carry to the family reunions and such. It’s a little awkward to have at the water cooler, too. So how to share these wonderful moments of life becomes a question.

You can e-mail them…to those who have stepped into the 90’s and have an e-mail account, but their is something to remember…size matters. Yep, I said it. If you use your nifty 7.0 mega pixel camera at high resolution, that sucker is going to take up some megabytes. Then, send that to someone who is using dial up or just a slow connection, and it’s going to suck. Also, some folks have a limit on size for incoming messages. So shrink ‘em down. Every photo managing software I have ever seen has a “re-size” option. make them more manageable, then send them off. It will be more enjoyable for Dial-Up Daisey, if she doesn’t have to wait 10 minutes to see the little one’s Santa picture. And who really wants to be able to count the pores on Santa’s cherry nose?

So what about those times when you don’t have computer access. Print them out. Save them to disc and take them to your local drug store or photog store. Some places will let you email them in, then you can pick them up. Ta-da, traditional photo album.

Or, if your a dork like me, set up a Flikr Page. You can upload lots of photos, organize them, and share them with others. E-mail them a link, and they can see what your family did last weekend. You can even protect some or all you pics, so the sleazies out there can’t see your stuff. The free account has some limits, but for about $25 a year, you can upgrade and have alot of options.

Another cool thing about Flikr is that they partner with on-line publishing companies. I had a hardcover coffee table album made of about 30 of Tony’s pictures, for about $30. It is really neat. You can chose the layout, add captions, design it to your liking. I used Tabblo for mine, but there are others. All you do is drag and drop photo’s you’ve uploaded to your Flikr page, design, and order. It’s awesome.

So don’t let those pictures of Junior hide on your hard drive. Get them out there. Their are lots of ways to share.