now, get them on the computer

I promised you some more shooting tips, so here you go. Actually, today is not necessarily shooting tips, but it’s just as important. Remember when I told you to take lots of pictures? What do you do next? If they stay in your camera or on the memory card, they’re trapped and not doing anyone any good. Especially when you go to take pictures at your son’s soccer game only to discover that you can’t because your memory card is full.

You have to get the film developed, people! Oh sorry, I had a flashback. Put the pictures on your computer, really. If you bought your computer anytime within the past…four years, I’ll say, you should have a pretty big hard drive with plenty of room for your pictures. The problem is generally not the space on your computer; for most of us, what’s holding us back is finding the pictures again once we’ve put them on there. Windows doesn’t have a very useful built in photo library or catalog, so I’m going to make some software recommendations for you. These programs will help you get the pictures on the computer, sort them, label them, email them, arrange them, and even edit them.

Picasa is a great little library for your pictures put out by Google, which means, and this is the best part, that it’s free. Honestly, it doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles, but it will help you get the pictures on the computer, sort them, rate them, and even do some minor editing for you (black&white, tinting, sharpening, rotating, etc.). If you use Gmail (which is worth every penny…oh wait, that’s free too), it makes emailing pictures really easy (I mean, no more emailing out 4MB huge files that no one wants filling up their inbox). If you don’t use Gmail, it still makes emailing pictures pretty easy.

My other suggestion will cost you money, but I will say that I prefer it over Picasa, and it’s still not much. You will be able to do a lot more editing and tweaking and I feel like the cataloging/organizing function is quite a bit more robust. The program is put out by Adobe and it’s called Photoshop Elements. It has quite a few of the same features of its big brother Photoshop, including layers, the healing brush, and many things you may never use, but they are packaged in a pretty user friendly setup (big brother is not for the faint of heart). The organizer side of Elements is fantastic and will help you label pictures, rate them, email them, and just keep them organized. Your favorite wholesale club probably sells it for less than Adobe does, and it’s worth it.

If you are really enthusiastic about your photography and are itching to spend money, try Adobe’s Lightroom. This is the program I use for organizing my pictures and doing quite a bit of post processing (only problem children need the full blown Photoshop treatment), and it’s a gem. It’s aimed at pro photographers, so it may not be for you, but if you’re willing to spend the money it is awesome.

So, now that you’ve been taking pictures, get them off of your camera and onto your computer. Try one of these programs (both of Adobe’s offer a free 30 day trial) and see how they can change your life. Next time, I’m going to talk a little bit about what you do when you have the images on your computer.