I got everything organized in albums a few years ago, and have been keeping up with putting everything in since then pretty well. For negatives, I got a 3 ring binder and some negative pages. Each page fits one roll of film, and then I label the page. These are mostly for pictures that are important and that I would really miss if the picture was gone. When the kids were young, we used to get doubles, which ended up in boxes. I now have those in photo boxes. At the time, we gave some doubles to relatives. But I have found that it is really useful to have doubles - for the 8th grade slide show - they had a picture of many of the kids when they were young followed by a "now" shot. That was really neat! Then, they are always looking for old pictures for the yearbook, for school projects, DD just finished a biography project. I just tell them they can use the pictures in the boxes, they can cut them up if they want, whatever. As long as they don't touch the ones in the albums. (younger DD took a bunch when she was younger, and I still have not found them. The negatives were helpful there - I found out which pics. were missing and made new copies. But I have yet to locate all the negatives, and there were some pics. other people had taken). Now that we have a digital camera, I'm not sure what we'll do with pictures. But since the DDs are taking up so much space on the computer with music & their own pictures, I think I will get a hard drive to store them all on.

gwanny2three, Ok, I have to ask "How did you put music on your frame, mine is Photoshare. Do you think I can put music on too? You can email me direct to tell me how you did yours, if you want. Do you think I can put the music on now after I have the pictures already on? Sorry, I ask dumb questions but .... I love it too!

Cal, it looks great! :) The difference between your laundry in your kitchen and mine and Countryathearts, is that yours is pretty! Ours, likely, are not. At least mine isn't. Hijack alert! Trebruchet: "a small electrical chase would look just like a decorative pilaster and she agreed. Ten bucks worth of framing lumber sure beat paying an engineer for structural alteration drawings and all that work." Can you post a photo of this? I have a water pipe I need to enclose in my basement washroom and if it is easy to rig up, I'd like to do it. I also have an old non operational water meter in there!!! I can't get rid of that because it somehow wirelessly tells a meter somewhere else what my water consumption is. There's a kind of ugly table thing enclosing it, because you have to be able to access it because it's the main shutoff valve for the whole house. Thanks!!

My scanner is an HP Scanjet 5370Cse. I either bought the model with a top light, or purchased one as an accessory. The sensors are under the glass plate (on the moving head). Therefore, light must be passed from the top down through transparent photo media. The top light accessory provides this illumination and holds the negative masks. B/W negatives, color negatives, and color transparencies all use the top light. The bottom light is turned off when using the top light. (I had an all-in-one printer that had a top light built into the lid and that was much more convenient. Unfortunately, that printer began to fail last year and has been replaced.) The use of the top light is a bit awkward and not conducive to high production. It is best for a session of not more than 20, maybe 50, images per sitting. The negatives must be carefully positioned in the mask. Care must be exercised to keep finger prints off the image portion of the media. Slides and negatives should be handled by the edges only. Dirt and finger prints can be a problem. A spec of dirt on a 35 mm negative will make a magnified black dot on the copy. The most difficult negative to handle is a strip of 35 mm film that has been wrapped around a cardboard oblong and stored for several years. The film will have a permanent bends and is difficult to get it to lay flat. However, I did like the results and the degree of color balance adjustment control. The software was included with either the top light accessory or was on the printer driver disk. There is a learning curve until you understand how each feature works, and then after that, it is quite enjoyable. There is another option for 35 mm format: Use your digital camera. Nikon and possibly other makes offer a copy accessory with illumination. Getting even illumination across the entire film, and having a proper color content, is critical for copy work. Hobbyist do make their own fixtures, but this is ok for the experimenter. If you wish to get the job done in a reasonable amount of time, stick with the manufacturers fixture. An advantage of using your camera is that the image is already stored as a digital file. Also, the cost is very low. Blown shots cost nothing. Merely erase these, adjust, and shoot again. The camera's screen can be used to make a cursory check on the image quality captured. I have a relative who copied 3000 frames and photos using his digital camera as a copy machine. These were professional shots made in exoitic locations for magazines, ads, and catalogs.