What Do You Do With Your Photos When You Get Home?

We came back from our first big family trip to Europe in 2007 with over 1000 digital photos. Obviously we were not going to print them all. But there were still hundreds that we liked and wanted to see on display. We had them on our computer and set the desktop background to be a random photo from the trip changing every hour or so. Our computer is almost always on and when not in use, is essentially a giant digital photo frame. We enjoyed seeing the photos that way so much that in the end, we decided not to print any of them. We enjoyed them every day that way until we returned from our next trip - when a whole new batch of 600-800 photos were put on "display" the same way. (The computer is in our "family" room, away from the more public part of the house, so casual visitors are not subjected to the big computer screen) All of the old photos remain saved x3; on the computer, on the back-up hard drive, and burned onto CDs. Except for Christmas cards, we have never printed any of them (now about 4000 photos) We probably have a couple thousand printed photos in albums from 15 years worth of trips BEFORE the days of digital. I'm glad we have them, I guess, since some day I'll look at them and relive a fond memory. But the harsh truth is that we never crack those albums open. We just don't. There are probably some that I have literally NEVER seen.

Within 1-2 weeks I go to Costco and view all the images and print the best 4-500 images and put them in a photo album. I try now to limit the number of images I take on trips to less than 7-800.

Randy, As soon as I return home, I transfer photo files (both RAW from my DSLR & JPEG from my P&S) to my computer, and then sort them into Folders according to country. I review all the images and convert "preferred" RAW images to JPEG (usually with DXO Optics Pro), saving them in the same folders as the RAW original. I store some images on remote Servers (SmugMug), and keep the originals on my backup Drobo-S hard drive (which at the moment contains two-2TB drives, but can be expanded to five-2TB drives). I don't typically burn DVD's, as my file sizes are quite large so it would require a lot of disks. I haven't finished sorting all my photos yet, so some files still reside on the hard drive in the computer, as well as on the backup hard drives. Cheers!

I don't always bring my camera,, but if I do ,, I take some photos( nowhere near what some of you take,, maybe 50-100 max, lol ) then put them on the computer, then look at them, then show them to a few friends or family, then edit down to about 20 ,, then look at them, send one or two off to friend. Then they rot on my computer,, just like the paper photos that are shoe boxes somewhere.
OK ,, I have had two printed off that are in small frames in my home. Thats it. My "photos" are in my head.

I have all my photos on my computer and the best ones in albums. There are places on the web (Shutterfly, etc.) that will make a book for you with the pages printed and captions added. In addition, We have two bathrooms, one for my wife and company and one for me. In my bathroom I have 8x10, framed photos all over the walls. Since my travelin' days are almost over, it's good to remember those places and trips I love so much.

I tend to do a few different things with my images. I do a really ruthless edit with all my images....only the best of the best, then I put those into a slide show presentation with music so I can view the highlights of my trip. I also try to do a book from really special trips (those with my grandkids) which I print digitally on fine art paper and put in a nice presentation for them. I have also done a really fun banner with a collage of images from each of those trips and they are framed and hang in the hallway. I have done a few books at blurb.com... an on-demand printer and those are fun to have around. Editing is the key to making a nice presentation. I tend to do an edit where I put all my images in a folder of 'maybe'. I will then go through that folder and pull out all the images that are the highlights and favorite images. I will then go through that folder and if it tells the story, I am done. I never put duplicates, just the images that count. I am a professional photographer and do sell wall decor from my trips so I also work on about 10 images from each trip that are appropriate for that venue, so of course, those are all over my home as well. Obviously, I back them all up in a few places and burn dvd's of all of my originals as well as the final presentations that I end up with. It does take a ton of time.... and I currently have my 3 previous trips that I need to finish up! I spend lots of time choosing the music for my slideshow and have received some good recommendations from people here. The slideshows (usually about 5 minutes long) are a way to share you trip with friends without boring them to death.

I do almost exactly what you do, Randy: screensaver and all. I also do a "daily postcard" during the trip that I post to a web album in Picasa, which all my friends, family and coworkers can see. (Don't write paper postcards anymore.) Last trip I took a ion of 17 pictures and made a collage on Snapfish.com, which I turned into a framed poster for my office so I can see a bit of Italy every day I am at work and remember one reason I work. :-)

1. make a slide show in Iphoto. 2. print what I want and make a scrapbook - yep, I'm a scrapbooker. 3. Pick the best of the best and enlarge and frame to hang someplace in my home 4. if the trip was with other people (like our last hiking trip in France) I'll download to Shutterfly so I can share my photos easily with others in the group. In our "home theater room" (i.e. basement) I have a saying on the wall "Oh the places you will go" (Dr Seuss) and under that I have 6 8" x 10" frames with my gallery of travel shots..I also have a bunch of photos on the wall in my scrapbook room (kids bedroom) I enjoy my photos all the time!

Nice Topic Randy! Back in the 90's when using film we printed everything and pasted them in a scrap book. When digital media arrived we took the best fifty or so, uploaded to a photo processor and printed them into bound memory books to show family and friends. After the recent trip to France we downloaded them directly to our ipad. Our family and friends can slowly flip though them or run a slide show. Of course the better shots go into the digital picture frames, screen savers, desk top backgrounds, and photo collage.

We first download the memory cards into our desktop. Then we decide which are the most interesting to print on our computer printer. Nearly all the photos we print are in the 8 1/2 x 11 format. Digital point and shoot cameras can catch an amazing amount of detail that only comes out in larger prints, it seems like they are apprediated more by others who view them. After our last trip we made about a hundred and fifty prints. That's very expensive and comes out to something like a dollar a print when you figure in the ink and photo paper. That's out of about thirteen hundred that we took, but then we have something that is a pleasure to share - or not. Our prints were the evening's entertainment at the village bar last Thursday evening. Finally, we download the computer file to disc.

I store all of my photos on Shutterfly.com. they have an option to create a website for your albums so that you can easily share them with other people. i put anything that i want to share with friends & family up there. it's free and extremely easy to set up (i'm not great with computers). here's my web address (you can pick your address yourself): jdspics618.shutterfly.com.

First, I transfer the pictures from the notebook (where I'd have been downloading them during the trip every night or so) to an external drive (backup). Then, I'll look over them and erase duplicates (like when I take 2/3 pics of the same spot to choose) one, put some captions where needed etc. I will then upload the most interesting pictures to Picasa or FLickr. I haven't printed one picture in like 10 years, I use digital pic displays instead, and also use them as screen savers.

What a great question. I take around 500 pictures for a 3-week trip and put them on my computer (I finally got a digital point-and-shoot camera in 2010). I'm a sucker for vacation photos, other people's as well as mine, so I put my best pictures on Facebook.

I take lots of photos, not just in Europe, but in every day life as well. My photos are more valuable to me than any other material possession I have. I used to print them all out and put into albums, like you said, but now I do 3 things... I download all of them on my computer, make a CD of about 200 to show friends when they come over (we make it a fun party), and I also make a small album of about 100 to show to people when there isn't time for the CD. One Christmas, my son made one of those hard back photo books for me for a gift - that was great. I love being able to store them on my laptop, technology is great! Much better than photo albums and I look at them when I need a break from every day life.

When I get home I download my pictures to a folder on my desktop computer and also to a backup CD, but by the time I'm home my pictures are already sorted. Sorting is what I do in the evening before bed or at breakfast in the morning. Since I bring along a netbook, I download the pictures for the day(before) from the Memory Stick to my netbook, putting them in a folder for that date and, if I saw multiple towns, into subfolders for each town. It's rare that I print out a picture.

We take about 1500-2500 for our typical three week trips. Lots of editing required! Last year I got into photobook; you just download the free software and create til your heart's content. You only pay when you buy a book. I've done four books for past trips and am currently working on the one for the September trip to France. I love the results, there's so many options and possibilities.

I take my best 20 and put them on my computer and upload to Photobucket or Flickr. You can share a link to the pictures or show them to a friend but 20 is about all anyone wants to see from your trip. I do upload all of them and keep a copy on disk. I'f I have one or two really great ones I might make a print. Screen savers are a no brainer.

Hi, We used to print the photo's and put them in a large 13"X13" photo album along with pages of "scrap book" stuff (Reciepts, bus. cards of inns and restaurants, etc.). Now, we put them in iPhoto and make beautiful "coffee table" books of our trips. The iPhoto books come out absolutley beautiful. They look like store bought books.

One of the advantages of digital is it's much easier to take gobs of pictures, then delete the ones you don't want. Back in the film days I passed up many photo ops because I was low on film or had already taken one picture of a subject. Worse you had to develop (and normally print) everything before you knew which ones were good. When I get home from a trip, I run my pictures (rarely less than 800 even though I do some pre-deleting while on the road), delete some, edit/crop the rest and save them into my "travel photos" file. They're stored by date, so they stay in travel sequence for easy identification/retrieval when I want them. As a backup, I make a disk of the trip and store it seperately. My screen saver is a random slide show of my travel photos so I'm constantly revisiting views from my travels. One picture is Russia, the next is Florence, followed by Belize, Cologne, Venice, Oslo, Salzburg, Mexico, etc.

I review my photos every day on the trip and delete some. When I get back, I download them, and send a few to friends. I print some of them and they eventually go in a shoebox with other souvenirs from the trip. I also add the photos to a digital picture frame which I keep on my desk at work.

I do similar to what you do Randy. Random slide show of all my photos when the computer is inactive for 5 minutes. In earlier trips I printed everything but now with digital I print very few. Some I enlarge to 8.5 x 11 and a couple 11x17 to hang on the wall. I previoulsy shot in jpg but now shoot exclusively in raw and download the raw files and keep them in a separate folder and then post process most of those converting to jpg and then put in different folders for each trip. I always have my originals to go back to if I want to play with them some more. I back them up on a separate external hard drive and also with an outside source, Carbonite. Many are backed on up CD's or DVD's as well. I also enjoy making slide shows with them with ProShow producer from Photodex. An excellent program and one I have used to make slide shows for family and friends for memorial services and special events. As you mentioned the digital age provides us with so many more options that allow us do things with our photos that we never dreamed of doing with film.

Digital pictures are a blessing and a curse! I take a ridiculous amount of pictures (1-2,000+), which is, of course, the blessing and the curse. I've come up with a 3-step process that is perfect for me. First, I download my pictures to my laptop and spend a couple of months editing, deleting, etc. Second, I create calendars of some of my favorite shots - a wall calendar for home and a desk calendar for work. Third, I create a 100 page photo book of my favorite shots that captures the essence of the trip. I don't think I've ever done anything as much fun as create photo books of my trips. I look at them over and over again. I'd like to add a fourth step - creating a slide show of the pictures online - not all of them, but more what's in my photobook - that I could share with people who ask. However, by the time I get through the first three steps, it's time to leave for my next trip.

Thanks to all who have replied so far. They have been fun to read and I've gotten some new ideas, too. It's kind of amazing when you think about it, how different technology can make travel. Photography is very different now. Research & planning is completely different. Connectivity... the list goes on and on. Today is very different from 20 years ago. Just imagine what it might be like 20 years from now... It's good to point out that travel CAN still be done the old fashioned way and that it might hold some advantages as well. But I think it would be absurd to suggest that most of the changes are not improvements overall. Who would want to go back to the days of carrying rolls of film with them everywhere and then coming home to discover that their much-anticipated family photo in front of _____ turned out blurry?

Randy, as much as I'm a fan of old-school photography, I have to wholeheartedly agree with you. I brought a point-and-shoot film camera (decent quality, really, for what it was) and a bag of film (40 rolls for 5 weeks, 25 exposures per roll) on my 2008 trip (the last time I did this!). I could use one roll per day with a few extra pictures, on average; if I was low one day, I had more film to use the next day. Although the weight and bulk of the film annoyed me, it was exciting to wait until I got home and get everything developed and go through the pictures (with my unwilling family). I finally got a digital point-and-shoot camera for my trip in 2010 and I have to say that I won't go back to the old-school way. My photography packing list includes the camera, extra battery, extra memory card, and charger. I can keep it all in a small pouch, instead of the gallon-sized plastic bag of film. And the picture quality of my digital camera blows the film camera out of the water.

Flickr.com is my sharing site. I post all my photos on Flickr except for those with identifiable people in them; those I email directly to people I think would be interested. Then I select a few that I particularly like and add them to the collection on my digital photo frames. And if there are some that are truly special, I print enlargements and frame them to display at home. Of course, that's after I've edited out the ones I don't want to keep, and done whatever Photoshopping I think is best for the ones I do want (cropping, etc).

We enjoy them everyday with a cup of coffee! We either run them as a slide show or just let the computer randomly go through them as our screen saver. We sit, drink coffee, and reminisce every morning and discuss where the next trip will be. What could be better than that!

According to what I have read on this thread, I must take the "prize" for most photos taken while on vacation! I seem to average nearly 1000 per week and have been taking five week long trips. I got my first digital SLR in 2005, and really love digital. The ability to change ISO so easily is wonderful. Deleting photos is really hard for me unless it is a real blooper. I put my photos on my laptop, on two external drives and on CD's or DVD's. I have tried to talk myself out of printing so many, but have been doing about 600. Like someone else said, I really don't look at photo albums that often, but feel the need to do them anyway. We really like to view the photos on a large, flatscreen TV. Having photos of my vacations is really important to me, and I really enjoy looking at them!

I take lots of pictures (1000+ on a 3 week trip). When I get home I upload them to Photoshop elements, delete probably 1/2 to 2/3. I'll print maybe the best 2 or 3 to 8x10 size for framing and hanging. For the last 3 trips (Turkey, Spain, and Italy) I've use Photobook to beautiful coffee table books. I scan ticket stubs and receipts and include text from my trip journal, so the photobook becomes a true scrapbook of the trip. I also change our computer wallpaper about once every week or 10 days, choosing something from our travels.

I limit myself to the photo capacity of a 4 GB disk (about 1000). I carry an extra 2 GB disk just in case I get out of control. I edit the pictures ruthlessly on a daily basis. When I get home, I put them into my computer and get rid of even more. The ones I keep go into an appropriately labeled file. I use the best pictures to tell the story of our trip on a blog that is just about our travels. It's a lot of work, but it puts the pictures into context. To enhance the stories I hyperlink to things that I didn't take pictures of because it wasn't allowed, or I was too busy being awestruck to pull out the camera, or that were inappropriate for still photos, or that my pictures failed to illustrate properly. I use the file of pictures from the most recent trip as my screensaver, so I get to see them pop up on my screen and remind me of what a good time we had. I haven't printed pictures of anything in years and only do a little of that as part of letters to friends and family who don't use computers at all.

Regarding memory: I once thought a couple of 4mb cards would do the trick. Now I'm up to 3 - 4's and an 8mb card - and think I can do with some more. The extra battery is a really good idea. Rechargeable batteries can look nearly full, then die an hour later. an extra battery keeps you going until you have time to recharge your dead one.

I download them all to my computer, then edit and download some to a CD to take to work. I also upload several to facebook for my friends who live out of town. We also have a digital frame that our favorites get loaded on. We still print out an 8x10 of our very favorite from each trip and put on the wall taking off one from a previous trip. I print off around 400-500 a do a scrapbook. Great responses, I can't wait to make one of the hardback books that were mentioned.

looooooove making Shutterfly books! creating the books takes some times because like to get creative with backgrounds and borders and layouts. i also review guidebooks and journals so i can make good, detailed comments with each picture. i also find travel quotes i like and add them to some pages. it turns into quite a project! the outcome is great though and i enjoy sharing it with family and friends. also - i find the process of creating it has me reminiscing on my trip and that is always fun!