You need to do both: Digital photo paper for home printing is not as good as prints made by the processing labs: it will deteriorate and fade over the years (I learned this from a tech. magazine). Digital formats such as jpeg etc will eventually be outdated: but, just as you can get your old Super 8 cine films converted to VHS, and then again from VHS to DVD, there will ALWAYS be conversion technology. To be really certain of protecting yoru family photos, you need to do both: print copies, and digitally saved copies. If you want the print copies to last, ideally, you shoudl order them from an online service, as the paper quality is better. For saving your photos digitally, please, please BACK THEM UP in a second place than your computer. I had a catastrophic hard-drive failure a few years back and lost all my photos. Back them up on CDs, and an external hard-drive. I keep my external hard-drive in a fire-proof box. I have friends who's house burned down and they lost everything. A fire proof box might have saved their stuff. On-line photo storage would also have saved their stuff. BACK UP. I can't say it enough.

ideefixe, who's to say that jjkadaba69 would KEEP the out-of-focus snaps? Maybe she'd toss those as she goes. But she'd rather simply stick the prints she already has into an album. I certainly hope you didn't spend time SCANNING any of those out-of-focus snaps--that would be a big waste of time. I know people often suggest scanning your pictures, but I just can't wrap my head around it. Talk about chore clutter! Another thing to put on your to-do-list, and another system to organize. Plus, the whole POINT of pictures is to LOOK at them. I have yet to see anyone live in a world in which digital pictures get looked at after they're taken. The very format makes it difficult. If course, if your pictures are already digital, then you'll want to store them digitally, and figure out how to look at them (I love the idea of those electronic frames that display digital pictures). Of course, I'm still film-only, and MY pictures don't get looked at after they're taken either. That would be the point of getting albums and slipping the pictures in there--it would be easiER to look at them. And the fastest way to get pictures that are ALREADY printed to be easily view-able is to simply stick them in an album, right as they are. Without the intermediate step of scanning them. The process of moving the photos from one format to another seems like a major waste of time. jjkadaba69, maybe you should price out 3-ring binders, and plastic page protectors. The other option is to buy as many as you can find from a place like Target or Kmart all at once time, so they'll match. Start saving up the ear-marked money first, and then pick a time to go spend $100 or more on matching albums. You can also pick a basic color (maybe medium blue w/ yellow), and then buy ones that coordinate whenever & wherever you can find them. Also, it's only the SPINE that will be seen when they're on the shelf, so you can simply pick a basic design & size, and then not worry about color so much, and so you can buy them in stages.

Hi TIA.. Funny you asked...... I am working on a digital photo scrapbook right now for my daughter's 30th BD. I am having really good luck with it..I am using a Photo Album Kit which I bought at Staples Office Supply. The kit is called Invent It ! You must use you own photo software to do the creating but this kit includes 15 sheets of 2 sided photo paper..one glossy side for best photos and one matte side for messages ..text ...and also can put photos this side as well, you also get two heavyweight paper cover sheets for front and back..and 1 heavyweight photo frame paper cover...the neat thing is that it also includes an easy to use spiral binder to bind the album. I am also adding things on regular acid free paper bought at walmart..the brand is Fiskars Photo Memories. I am using acid free stickers on both the photo and acid free paper as well. I am having fun and the print quality is great.. I have scanned paper clippings of her birth and baptism engagement marriage and her school activities ..a lot of things I saved from her growing up years. I am excited to get this done for her surprise party in a couple of weeks. I would certainly say GO For IT!! Nebgranny98

I guess I'm a sentimental old fool (at 53, LOL). Here is my experience... I have a few picture books printed online and they are great. However, IMHO, they can't compare to actual printed (or developed) pictures. I was tasked with writing a biography of my M&D's life, and believe me, it wasn't short! To do this I used verbal accounts from my M&D; a few thousand slides from my M&D, GP's and Great A&U; hundreds of photographs; my Great Aunt's daily journals; and tape recordings we sent from overseas to my GPs'. I digitized and transcribed almost all of it. Even though the slides were decades old, the digital quality was amazing. The scanned photographs, even the old, old, B&W's, were generally good quality. I only used a few pictures that were taken with a digital camera. The best part of the whole process was the obvious telling of their life story by my parents to me. As an adult you hear stories you weren't aware of as a child or wouldn't have been privileged to. The second best was handling the old photographs. Actually feeling them in my hands, turning them over to see if there was any writing on them, thinking of all those who had looked at them before me. Right up with this feeling was the handling of letters and my Aunt's journals. It's as if I could re-touch family members deceased through the pictures, letters, and journals. The nostalgia cloaked me with love when sifting through the pictures, holding each one in my hand and remembering. The biography is now complete and published. It's an amazing story and there are pictures, journal excerpts, and even conversations from the tapes that were transcribed (like when my sister was born and my Dad got the other four kids' reactions and my Mom talked to my Grandparents right after the birth). This is a long winded way to say that I prefer, much prefer, holding and looking through actual photographs to looking at the pictures printed in a book. If they are in a photo album, you can still take them out, look at the back, handle them, scan them, kiss the faces of your loved ones, hold them next to your heart. It's just not quite the same, for me, when it's a picture printed on a page of a book.