Does anyone actually 'print' the photographs they take?

[PeteMorris 10]

For those that 'do' print their pictures...Do you print the yourself?...Or get a printing service to do them?....

[Cyclone 10]

What do you call safe?....I had a shed load of mine on a portable hard drive, which one day decided it wasn't going to 'play' any more....

 

I have multiple backups, some live, some offline. I keep meaning to put one in the firesafe. Many are in the cloud. So even if my house burnt down I'd be able to recover a lot of my images.

 

---------- Post added 16-02-2015 at 14:13 ----------

 

I read an article (sorry can't remember where) recently which said that things stored on technology of any kind may be at risk of being lost.

 

Reason being that the constant changes in technology may make them irrecoverable. No idea if there is any sense to the report but worth thinking about?

 

So perhaps it might be worth thinking about printing off anything really special.

 

I read it as well, it struck me as particularly ill informed.

 

---------- Post added 16-02-2015 at 14:14 ----------

 

hahaha...That portable drive, 'was' the backup from the computer...I suppose we could all buy several portable drives, and a few memory sticks just to make sure...:hihi:

 

If you don't backup then you could will be very sorry one day.

 

Take a backup, repeat it periodically and confirm that the data is really there, and keep it somewhere safe.

 

---------- Post added 16-02-2015 at 14:16 ----------

 

I think the problem there is like the old copied video tapes. Every time you copy the image deteriorates. Those old porn videos had been copied so many times you had no idea who was doing what to who, or what with.

 

I hope that was a joke. Digital copies don't deteriorate, the copy is either identical or it failed.

 

---------- Post added 16-02-2015 at 14:17 ----------

 

Seems some good advice,

"Why the ‘Father of the Internet’ Thinks You Should Print Out Your Photos"

http://time.com/3710227/google-vint-cerf-digital-dark-age/

 

That's the article, and it really doesn't make much sense.

[geared 302]

Yes but the plain fact is....Many people won't backup their data...Indeed some of those I saw being interviewed this morning said they don't even offload them from their phone...Just keep them on their phone....Not even upload them to the cloud....

 

So as I said, a large chunk of personal history and social history could well be lost.....

 

Thats the fault of the user, not the media though.

 

There are plenty of options out there to secure your data, if people choose not to then they can't really complain when it all go's missing :|

 

With phones even more so, you can now just set it to backup all pictures to your cloud as soon as they've been taken.

[PeteMorris 10]

Thats the fault of the user, not the media though.

 

There are plenty of options out there to secure your data, if people choose not to then they can't really complain when it all go's missing :|

 

With phones even more so, you can now just set it to backup all pictures to your cloud as soon as they've been taken.

 

Yes I wholeheartedly agree. It is the fault of the user. Or at least partly. As I said, some people are bit more tech savvy than others....and yes it could be argued, that's their fault too.

 

As we all now tech moves so fast these days...it's hard for people to keep up with it...especially if you're not using it on a day to day basis.

[retep 68]

I have multiple backups, some live, some offline. I keep meaning to put one in the firesafe. Many are in the cloud. So even if my house burnt down I'd be able to recover a lot of my images.

 

---------- Post added 16-02-2015 at 14:13 ----------

 

 

I read it as well, it struck me as particularly ill informed.

 

---------- Post added 16-02-2015 at 14:14 ----------

 

 

If you don't backup then you could will be very sorry one day.

 

Take a backup, repeat it periodically and confirm that the data is really there, and keep it somewhere safe.

 

---------- Post added 16-02-2015 at 14:16 ----------

 

 

I hope that was a joke. Digital copies don't deteriorate, the copy is either identical or it failed.

 

---------- Post added 16-02-2015 at 14:17 ----------

 

 

That's the article, and it really doesn't make much sense.

 

Not too much up on this but, you may know,

 

Data degredation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_degradation

[Frederick1 10]

For those that 'do' print their pictures...Do you print the yourself?...Or get a printing service to do them?....

 

Something I forgot to mention in my earlier post!

I do print them out myself, but as my photoprinter won't work with Windows 8 I've found another solution.

Buy some A4 photo paper, about 170gsm, and use it on your normal printer, printing in groups of four which you can then cut to singles.

Much cheaper than photo printers!

 

 

 

:)

[Delayed 461]

I've only printed 4 photos since taking up photography as a hobby and these are the ones that I've liked so much that I have had them framed and put on the wall.

 

Everything else is stored on the hard-drive or facebook.

[truman 10]

Not too much up on this but, you may know,

 

Data degredation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_degradation

 

If you use the cloud you would hope that the companies that provide the service use some form of redundant disk array (raid etc) so even if they have a disk failure the data is safe..and I would assume they have a rigorous backup protocol as well..as should home users if they don't want to lose the photos

[rockonvynil 10]

I have loads of digital photos that were downloaded onto CDs several years ago. The computers that the images were downloaded to from the camera were long since consigned to land fill. Now quite a lot of the images have corrupted on the discs. It seems there is a great deal more stability in a CD or DVD that was recorded in a factory and a reusable CD that was recorded on a home PC.

i have discs over fifteen years old all stored in wallets or sleeves non are faulty and i have over three thousand cd and later dvds.i can remember this old chestnut about discs not lasting from about the same time they were introduced in 1985.tip-don't scratch the paint on the non data side.

[handypandy 14]

I tend to only print the odd pics to give away to the family or frame for the wall. I try to store them and back them up on various media after I had a couple of scares in the past.

 

I'd just like to make the point though, to at least save them somewhere. After my father died a few years ago, I borrowed the old albums off mom to scan. Even the crappiest of old photo is gold dust a few years later.

My brother found an old box of slides in his loft, from our youth. He scanned them and sent me copies. They have suffered a bit over the years but my goodness, the memories and emotions they evoke after almost 50 years is indescribable.

Also, if you tend to do some zealous cropping of the images, save the originals as well, some of the stuff you see in the background is priceless.

 

 

 

.

[Cyclone 10]

Not too much up on this but, you may know,

 

Data degredation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_degradation

 

Yes, individual media can decay. Cloud storage should of course be entirely safe, and any active storage should also be safe (when it fails, as it will, you replace it and restore the backup from one of your other copies).

[Anna B 1,401]

Watching the news this morning (sorry, can't find a link now), there was talk that with the advent of camera phones, and relatively cheap 'almost' professional cameras, we never seem to print out the pictures we take.

 

We either upload them to facebook, store them in the cloud, or just leave them to fester on a hard drive, or memory stick. But we never print them out.

 

I remember when I was a child and growing up, we (as a family) had a suitcase of snaps taken on holiday, or at weddings or whatever, and ok, yes I can see the parallel in them hardly being looked at, just the same as the digital ones we take these days. But there is an argument in that a whole generation of social history is being lost. Or at least a potential for it to be lost.

 

I'm as guilty as anyone in 'not' printing pictures I take, except on quite rare occasions. In fact, I don't have a photo album of any sort in my house.

 

To try to answer the reasons behind this, I can only speak from my point of view. I have a quite good colour printer, but find it's just too expensive to use it to print pictures (photo's). The cost of the ink, and the cost of the 'special' paper, if you want something that's half decent, I find is just prohibitive. How many times have we tried to print a picture, only to find it's either pale and wishy-washy, or got a vertical line down it, or the ink of one colour runs out, or a whole host of other problems?

 

I know there's various shops you can take a memory card into, and have the pictures printed, but in all honesty, I can't really be bothered with that either. Too much hassle.

 

So.....Do you print your 'worthy' photos?...Or not? If not why not?

 

I think this is a relatively new phenomenon and won't really come home to roost for a generation or two, when people will belatedly realise what they have lost, so yes, I do think it is important to print your photos.

 

One of the major problems is the sheer number of photographs we take just because we can. (Over 200 at a recent event...) so I would advise people to do a fairly ruthless first edit as they go along, and then a drastic edit again when they get them on the computer. Then chose no more than 20 to represent the collection, have those printed, and put them in an album. Keep the rest in digital form.

 

Sometimes it's easier to pick the most appealing photographs after some time has elapsed.

 

I'm also a fan of those profesional photo books for particular holidays and other major events, although they can be quite expensive.

 

Only time will tell if old fashioned photographs will eventually die out, but I think it will be a great shame if they do. My sister and I had a lovely day recently, reminiscing over an ancient batch of family photographs when an elderly relative died. I really can't imagine doing that if it meant accessing their computer....