Digital Photo ProFiling....Why I Digitize and Save My Hard Copies

After yesterdays post on professing to be a ProFiler with Cleaned Out Files, I thought I'd better get to cleaning out/up 2014's Photo Files.

I know you must be shocked to see this 'BoxLid & Envelope' filing system...especially with the USB cord NOT plugged into it's intended outlet.  It's just a reminder of my good intentions to get these photos filed to the external hard drive...which by the way, is a safe way to ensure your photos are not lost if your computer crashes or the www dot cloud has a lightening strike and rains all over your photo parade.  It's called 'BACKING UP'.  One should do it OFTEN not just ONCE...a year.  It's not like I don't get reminders from 'Seagate' who checks to see if I'm using their product and are wondering if I need to upgrade or increase to a bigger storage building photo parking hard drive.

I love these pictures. They are family treasures and are irreplaceable.  Especially the two black and white photos from my mother's 1940 Album.  The little girl is me about 2 years old and the other one is my grandmother Minnie standing in her back yard in Brayton, Iowa.  Notice the clothesline pole and the sign on the back of the shed....Chew Red Man Tobacco. 

I didn't notice it either until this photo was scanned, enlarged and the black and white contrast enhanced just a bit.  If not for making the effort to go through the process of saving this picture digitally, I would also have missed the little girl standing by the clothesline pole.  It is me!  Mother took this picture of her mother probably about 1949-50.  I wonder if she pointed and shot her 'Brownie' with the intention of capturing this incredible moment in time of my grandmother.  In all likely hood she never noticed the look on her mother's face as the original is only 3.5x5, blurry and the images smaller.  It is true what they say....'A picture is worth a thousand words'.  I love this photo of my grandmother.

Lastly, digital filing gives you a creative license to do more with one 'original photo' than was ever possible before.  Besides enlarging and enhancing there is cropping,  adjusting exposure, retouching, resizing, special effects and fine tuning.  All of these tools are included in my Windows 7 Live Photo Gallery where I download  from my camera's SD Memory Card.

Once your photos are processed, you file them and once in awhile backup to your external drive or create albums in the clouds.  The Google+ free photo storage that comes with being a Google+ Blogger is one of the main reasons I do Google+.  You can follow me on Google+ by joining my Circle of Friends on the sidebar.

The photo of my sister and me with our mother was taken in one of our favorite greenhouse's in New Braunfels.  Also a photo that captured a special moment in time.  Can you tell which one is me?  If you could see the rest of our siblings in that Family Portrait, you would see why we were called 'The Pittman Peas In A Pod'. 

Now, it is time for me to start moving these photos from the 'Box Lid and Envelopes' to the scanner for digitizing and then to an acid free, labeled file storage box.  There they will be saved for future HARD COPY scrapbooks, photo albums and future generations to actually turn pages and be awed by images that have stood the test of time.  Oh, and saved so just in case technology outsmarts itself and a USB cord no longer has an outlet or it pours 'Acid Rain' from the Cloud.

That...is Why I Digitize and Save My Hard Copies.