So it is no secret that more photos are being taken. While these photos are being taken for traditional reasons like, the digital world has changed the way many perform these time-honored tasks.

Virtual Sharing
Many of today’s photos never make it to the paper family photo album. Instead they are shared electronically. Some are viewed on a computer or television screen. Some are e-mailed to family and friends. And many are shared through online photo services. These photo sites allow you to post and share your photos with others, usually for free. They hope to make their money by getting you and your friends to purchase prints of the photos through their Web site. While somewhat slow to catch on at first, these Web sites are building momentum. InfoTrends Research Group predicts that from 2002 to 2007, online photofinishing revenue is projected to grow at a compound annual rate of 40% worldwide.

Online photo services allow users to upload their pictures to a Web site run by the service company. Once uploaded, they can be organized into digital albums. The pictures can then be shared with anyone to whom the user gives the Web address. Most of these Web sites have easy-to-use tools for uploading, organizing, and sharing photos. Most also have free storage for your photos. They also sell photo greeting cards, t-shirts, mugs, and other personalized paraphernalia. The most popular of these services are the Kodak Easy Share Gallery (formerly Ofoto), Shutterfly, and Club Photo.

Printing Projects
With ink jet printers available for under $50, of course printing photos at home is also popular. Not surprisingly, printer manufacturers encourage everyone to print their photos. If, however, you visit a few of these manufacturer’s Web sites, you will find plenty of information as well as fun printing projects. Epson has a multitude of projects available with everything from laminated placemats to personalized “Beware of Dog” signs. (Look under Craft Projects.) Visit HP’s Home & Home Office area for more creative ideas. You will find fun projects like sports photo frames, and photo album collages. Not to be outdone, the Lexmark websitealso has ideas for printing photo calendars, mouse pads, and other items.

Printing Photos
So, printing service Web sites will try to entice you to let them print your photos, while print manufacturer Web sites will try to get you to print your photo on your home printer. But which is better? Actually, quite a few things come into play here.

The first is cost.   The average charge for a 4-by-6 inch print seems to be around 49 cents (Shutterfly and others). At some Web sites, like Club Photo you can get the same size for 25 cents. When you add up the cost of photo paper and ink, printing the same prints on your ink jet printer will cost you considerably more. However, when you get to larger prints, like a 8-by-10 inch size, it’s cheaper to print the photo yourself than pay the fees charged by the photo sites which average $4 a print.

One more important thing to remember… Photos printed on a plain ink jet paper will fade much more rapidly than photos printed by a photo developer. While some of the newer printers taut that their photos will last for up to 25 years, you will want to read the fine print. It often states that for photo to last this long, they have to be printed on a certain type of the manufacturers paper, using the manufacturers ink cartridge, and they must be kept under glass. So if you want your pictures to last as long as traditional photographs, you will have to follow instruction very carefully, or purchase a special printer like that is a dedicated photo printer that has a special lamination process to keep the photos from fading.

Archiving
Whether you use a photo service or print your own photos, creating memories with digital photo can be an interesting and exciting endeavor. Just remember that a photo service Web site or a computer hard drive are not good places to store your photos permanently. You should always copy your important photos to a CD for safe storage.