Ever wish that others in your family could enjoy your collection of printed photos as much as you do?
Read on for my solution on how to digitize your older and newer photos for safekeeping, and then print them as attractive photo books.
What photo books meant to my dad
We’re going to remember the 2020 COVID shutdown for years, won’t we?
My father was in a skilled nursing facility and we couldn’t visit him, but what I was able to do was create photo books that were easy to hold and ones that he could look through and relive some wonderful memories.
The photo books comforted my mother, me, and my siblings. We couldn’t visit Dad, but we knew he had a meaningful way to pass the days.
If you have pictures stored in traditional scrapbook albums, then I’ll show you how to digitize your most meaningful printed photos or digitize the album pages to create photo books. They make meaningful gifts all year long.
Experience your memories in print
Both digital and print are important. Digitized photos stored safely in the cloud preserve our legacy and are easy to share with friends and family around the world. Photo books stimulate other senses.
An essay in the Chicago Tribune describes the importance of print: our physical photos just do something that digital images can’t. They let us “touch” the past, invoking a sensory experience that stimulates our memory.
How do I make photo books of older printed photos and show my clients how to make them?
The first step is choosing the photos you want to preserve and then digitizing them.
Don’t try to save everything. Instead, find the pictures that immediately tug at your emotions or strike something special. Those are ones you should keep and digitize since those have the most meaning.
Your next step is storing them safely. I use FOREVER®, the most complete memory-keeping system available. Put your memories in one safe space, guaranteed.
You can store older print photos in the same place as your newest photos and videos that you’ve taken on your phone.
From there, you can have lots of fun.
The Benefits of using FOREVER®
As a photo coach, I know that FOREVER® is simply the best way to digitize, store, and organize all of your most meaningful memories. Here’s a screenshot of my parents digital space.
You own your content, meaning FOREVER® is your digital home that belongs to you. You’re not just renting space.
Don’t worry about technology changing. The company is designed to last for a lifetime, plus 100 years and beyond, and will migrate files to newer technologies as needed, thanks to the FOREVER® Guaranteed Fund.
You can get creative in ways that you can’t using social media or other companies.
I organize my files into Albums and Nested Albums.
Let’s say I’ve taken a memorable vacation then the main album might be Travel or Vacations and nested within that is an album titled “Vacation 2024 Yellowstone.”
Do you have a family reunion planned? Then that family reunion can be chronicled in its own themed album.
Now you’re ready to print photo books. From your albums, you can create an attractive photo book of specific events like a family reunion, a specific vacation, or a more general book highlighting someone’s life as a memorial.
That’s what a friend and colleague of mine, Amy Vandenberg, and her family did when her father suddenly passed away before his 70th birthday.
They scrolled effortlessly through almost 500 photos and created a slideshow in just a few hours.
A printed photo book honoring her father, shown above, was easy to create, too, despite the emotional challenges they endured.
Scroll to the end for a link to her story.
Photo Book Options and More Print Projects
FOREVER® makes it easy to create books according to your comfort level. Want to select pictures and have them auto-generate a book? You can do that. It’s easy to add your photos to specific layouts and templates or you can create your own custom design.
There are different styles of books like having ones that lay flat with photos showing from one edge to the other.
You can also create wall art and select other print projects like calendars or print photos onto everyday items like coasters.
If you have a child who’s getting married, then use childhood photos of the bride and groom to print as keepsakes for guests. If you have a parent who’s retiring, then use photos of them from early in their career and surprise them with a book or other memento.
You can also have collaborative albums to use with church groups, school clubs, and sports teams.
FOREVER® is one platform offering many ways to save and enjoy your family’s legacy.
Find out more
Contact me and I’ll show you how you can safeguard and share your most meaningful memories. You can also click Book a Session at the top of my web pages.
Click here to read more about my services.
Visit my Events page, too, for online workshops where you’ll learn and meet new friends.
Click here to read Amy Vanden Berg’s post:
How Safely Stored and Well-Organized Photos Bring Hope and Peace of Mind
If you want to dig more deeply into the article about printed photos then click here:
How family photos help kids (and all of us) cope through crisis