Is Digital Better?

In the process of packing, I've come to realize that my photo albums, scrapbooks, and yearbooks take up more than a full suitcase of space. This morning, I was comtemplating possible fixes for this predicament. The solution I keep coming back to is to undertake the large project of scanning each and every one of my photos. That way, I would still have all of them, but they would take up no space. It would be fantastic to have all of my scrapbooks online. I certainly would be more likely to look at them and share with other people.

And, what I couldn't help thinking, was how great it would be to upload all the pages and then have a book printed. So it's not that I really want to get rid of the books altogether, I just want to trade the bulky books for something more streamlined and, probably more expensive.

Looks like Flickr has a good hook-up with Qo-op for this type of thing. Now, does anyone in the Arlington, VA area have a high quality scanner I could use???

6 comments:

Rebecca said...

Just be sure you keep your photo files updated as technology changes. The ones stored in online servers should be fine, and the ones you transfer whenever you get a new computer should be ok, too - assuming you change computers at least every 5 years or less. But if you are storing any on disks of any kind, these may have problems if you don't transfer them to new media every few years. Until they come up with different media, anyway.

Good luck!

Kate said...

I would definitely upload everything to Flickr. Flickr rocks!

Girl said...

Huh...I gotta say, I am a sucker for a good ole' scrapbook. I mean, I know we all think that digital pictures are here to stay, but didn't they think that about slides too? And now people have boxes and boxes of slides that need to put in a different medium? A scrapbook will never need a special type of equipment to view it...nothing more than your eyes, a lap and some time.

Kate said...

I see what you're saying, Girl, but even if digital pictures become obsolete, I bet there will be some ingenious way to move them to whatever new format comes along that I would enjoy exploring. Scrapbooks are fun, but I never look at them, they take up a TON of space, my friends are scattered across the country making it near impossible to share those scrapbooks with people who are very important to me, and they are heavy and difficult to move. My ultimate plan would be to upload all my pages to flickr and then make them into compact photobooks that are available on Qo-op. That way, they are still in print, but not nearly so bulky. Unfortunately, it would take a ton of time (that I don't have right now), a high quality scanner, and not a ton of money, but more than I have.

Anonymous said...

or you could just leave things the way they are for now, and make cool digibooks with all your new fancy digipics. We used kodakgallery, (as you know) but i'm sure flickr is almost as cool.

btw, from now on, i will call myself rgr since there seems to be other rebeccas in your universe. *gasp*

Kate said...

I was a little confused by the new Rebecca, but then I remembered that she'd commented. I am most definitely going to leave things as they are for the next few years (unless PTS has a super fantastic, fast scanner that I can borrow during my time there). Of course, I'm probably not going to be looking for EXTRA projects to take on while I'm there...