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by Richard B. on Thu Jan 03, 2019 8:20 pm
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Hi, 

I don't do social media (luddite), so I would like a little advice. Over the holidays, the subject of family digital images and history came up. Of course everybody today shoots their own pictures and posts to various places on the internet. But the question arose, is there a way to store family images so that they would be available to our offspring and their offspring sometime in the future? Say twenty years from now, a relative wanted to see pictures of great uncle Richard. Hard to believe. 

Sure everybody has their own accounts on differing sites. But those accounts may be long gone and passwords lost in the future. It's far fetched I suppose but even something like Google Images could be lost if Google were ever broken up, a la the "Telephone Company" way back when. Also those Google accounts are password protected I believe. Various private image storing businesses have been closed, merged or consolidated in the past and I have read of concerns about retrieving images. 

So does anybody have a good (or best available ) solution for this? A private website might do the trick allowing many relative to view and post but that would have to be maintained and paid for after the original owner is gone. But I assume that is always going to be the case if the solution is internet based. 

This wasn't a problem way back in the picture album days. An album could be handed down to your descendants so they could mock their ancestors. But I think it is important to try to easily preserve this history for later generations. Interestingly I believe the Church of Later Day Saints maintains some sort of picture repository and claims a billion members if I recall correctly. 

Any suggestions for best practices out there? I appreciate any ideas. 

Thanks. 

Richard
 

by DChan on Thu Jan 03, 2019 10:29 pm
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Richard B. wrote:This wasn't a problem way back in the picture album days. An album could be handed down to your descendants so they could mock their ancestors. 

Well then, print the photos. I'm not sure why you'd think album is not a thing these days. Photo books or whatever if you prefer. They don't have to be big prints mind you. And you don't need to print every single one of your photos (nobody did back then and don't think anybody would now and ever).
 

by photoman4343 on Thu Jan 03, 2019 11:47 pm
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Make your own books of your favorite family photos. Make sure it contains text and other information to make the pictures more informative and historical. Then have enough copies made and give each family member a copy. You can do this easily and cheaply.. While I have never done it I have friends who do it all the time.

Here are two links to offerings. Use google to find more.

https://www.snapfish.com/photo-gift/photo-book

https://www.shutterfly.com/photo-books? ... gLt5PD_BwE
Joe Smith
 

by Kim on Fri Jan 04, 2019 12:18 am
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I agree on the photobook idea. I make a yearly album with text of all the significant events in our family from my images and give one to each of my children.
They are excellent quality books I pay a little more for so they will stand the test of time.

I make cheaper books for all my grandchildren and great grand kids for their birthdays each year plus any gradualtion events etc. They really seam to enjoys having their own books too.

I use Vistaprint here in Australia to make all my books.
 

by Richard B. on Fri Jan 04, 2019 9:43 am
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Thank you everyone for your responses. No doubt that printing images is a way to future proof them and it will most likely be part of the solution. But perhaps I should have gone into the logistics a little more. We are a family of six siblings, most of whom have their own families. There are a lot of pictures being taken and also many old snapshots in shoe boxes. With so many people, I was hoping to find some sort of electronic solution to make the images available to all. This would include scans of the old snaps.

Nevertheless, doing a hard copy print out would solve the future proofing problem to a great degree. So I will start researching printing companies. But if I could draw on your experiences, do any of these companies have a feature that allows some degree of bulk storage of images by multiple members? Selected images could then be printed out in book or other form? I seem to remember that Kodak tried something like this way back when. Of course you sent in film to be developed and they digitized the images and aggregated them for you if I remember correctly. Of course we know, this was no life saver for Kodak.

Appreciate your help.

Richard
 

by Jeff Pearl on Fri Jan 04, 2019 10:42 am
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Why do companies offer free photo storage? Flikr, Shutterfly, google, Smugmug, Microsoft Office365, etc. What about external hard drives?
You might want to use a combination of storage methods. I'd still print out your favorite photos along the way. Costco, etc can print photos at reasonable prices. Pinterest is another option. Build a wordpress website site https://wordpress.org/plugins/foogallery/  might also work for you.
 

by Joel Eade on Sat Jan 05, 2019 9:14 am
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Richard B. wrote:Thank you everyone for your responses. No doubt that printing images is a way to future proof them and it will most likely be part of the solution. But perhaps I should have gone into the logistics a little more. We are a family of six siblings, most of whom have their own families. There are a lot of pictures being taken and also many old snapshots in shoe boxes. With so many people, I was hoping to find some sort of electronic solution to make the images available to all. This would include scans of the old snaps.

Nevertheless, doing a hard copy print out would solve the future proofing problem to a great degree. So I will start researching printing companies. But if I could draw on your experiences, do any of these companies have a feature that allows some degree of bulk storage of images by multiple members? Selected images could then be printed out in book or other form? I seem to remember that Kodak tried something like this way back when. Of course you sent in film to be developed and they digitized the images and aggregated them for you if I remember correctly. Of course we know, this was no life saver for Kodak.

Appreciate your help.

Richard

Richard,

I researched this issue 3-4 years ago and here is what I decided to do:

  1. Keeper images are kept on laptop SSD and immediately uploaded to a Zenfolio account then monthly backed up to an external drive.

  2. Annually keeper images are transferred from laptop to a USB thumb drive kept in a safe at home

  3. Second annual backup: all keeper images are burned to M-disc and placed in bank safe deposit box

M-disc is a media with extreme life span and each disk holds 25 gb of data. The external burner was inexpensive and the disks are not too costly either considering you won't use a lot of them.

Joel
 

by Richard B. on Sat Jan 05, 2019 11:36 am
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Thank you Joel. I hoped to hear from someone with experience in this.

Not familiar with Zenfolio. Can multiple independent people (my sibs) upload to an account / folder or however they categorize your images?

Thanks again.

Richard
 

by DChan on Sat Jan 05, 2019 1:21 pm
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Something I read in an article in The Economist magazine many years ago and it said - paraphrasing here -: "if the death sea scrolls were in electronic format we probably would not be able to read them today."
 

by signgrap on Sat Jan 05, 2019 2:54 pm
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In the scheme of things Digital Technology is in its infancy. One thing you can be assured of is - what works today in all likelihood won't work in the future. Look how the rapid advance in technology has made once common media obsolete in a few short years. Remember when every computer had a floppy disk? What was it maybe 8-10 years ago that floppy disks were eliminated from all new computers. Apple is notorious for NOT making thing backwards compatible. As new storage technologies are developed the old ones are thrown on the scrape heap of history. So finding a long term storage solution is constantly changing as new technologies are developed. I'm sure you understand this hence your question. I think you have to find a solution that works right now and understand that in all likelihood 5 - 10 years from now it won't work. This is where you'll need to find a family member who's younger than you who is tech savvy and interested in keeping family albums alive to handle this problem when you're not around. But realize that so many pictures are taken daily that it is an every growing problem. The problem is immense, billions of photos are taken each day now, how does one keep up? Members have asked this very question many times over the years and to date I've not heard an answer that works 5 - 10 years into the future with any certainty.
Dick Ludwig
 

by Joel Eade on Sun Jan 06, 2019 6:12 am
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Richard B. wrote:Thank you Joel. I hoped to hear from someone with experience in this.

Not familiar with Zenfolio. Can multiple independent people (my sibs) upload to an account / folder or however they categorize your images?

Thanks again.

Richard


Anyone with sign in credentials can upload.

Images are organized in galleries that you create and name (i.e. folders)

There is no limit as to the number of galleries

There are options to set as to who who can download and what size files can be downloaded

I think their top level service is $140 / year
 

by Richard B. on Sun Jan 06, 2019 8:56 pm
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Thanks Joel, I appreciate your help. Apparently what I am looking for is guest privileges for uploading and viewing. Smugmug does allow guests to upload, there is a way to let anyone upload to Google Drive account, and as you say a credentialed person can upload to Zenfolio. I assume credentialed means they have a login to my account. I am not sure how many "guests" in any of these would be allowed to view the folder(s) if they have not been given upload authority.

So unless anyone has another solution, it looks like the best practice is to find which site allows "guest" uploading and viewing if possible, and then to go back to printing a "book" at some regular interval for the future viewing aspect. And also a great idea to corral one of the younger folk into this. I'll post when I get what I think is a reasonable working solution.

Thanks everyone.

Richard
 

by Larry Shuman on Mon Jan 07, 2019 4:20 pm
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Richard:
I save all to a external Western Digital hard drive. I have 10 of them now and I can easily go back to 2004 and retrieve something. What's more I have negative and slide files going back to 1969 and its all setting on a Western Digital 2TB hard drive. So I can go back to the very first negative I shot in 1960 in under 5 minutes.
 

by Richard B. on Mon Jan 07, 2019 8:12 pm
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Thanks Larry. I have all my personal stuff on multiple external drives as backup also, including rotating one copy to my safety deposit box. But what I want to do here is find a way for multiple users to access, load, and view the family images. But I'm not giving access to my computer to all my relatives.

But my real question, is how did you efficiently scan all the old negatives and slides? I assume you are an active photographer so that must a large number of scans?

Richard
 

by Primus on Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:01 am
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Richard B. wrote:Thanks Larry. I have all my personal stuff on multiple external drives as backup also, including rotating one copy to my safety deposit box. But what I want to do here is find a way for multiple users to access, load, and view the family images. But I'm not giving access to my computer to all my relatives.

But my real question, is how did you efficiently scan all the old negatives and slides? I assume you are an active photographer so that must a large number of scans?

Richard

Richard, I've struggled with this for over 20 yrs now and that is how my love for photoshop began, with my first attempts to 'clean-up' old fungus ridden family slides in the late 90s.

To answer your first question, Zenfolio while an excellent hosting site (and the best IMHO), does not allow guest uploads to a specific album. Anybody who has your primary password can upload of course (just like they can withdraw money from your bank account  :) ), but then you do have to give it to them.

Smugmug does allow guest uploads to a specific album that can be password protected and you can send that password to the family members without compromising the rest of your site. However, I found it to be very cumbersome and the interface and display options, flexibility and customizations were not as good (again, my opinion only) as Zenfolio.

The second question is less complicated. Initially I used a dedicated slide scanner - Polaroid and then Nikon Coolscan 5000. It did take me some time to finish scanning all the hundreds of slides the family had accumulated (my father's work mainly) over the years. Did the same with the negatives and prints (used various  flatbed Epsons, now have the  V700). It is a labor of love.

An easier solution today may be to use something like the Fujiscan document scanner for small prints (very fast scanner), or to set up a stand and slide holder with backlight so you can photograph the slide using a macro lens. I have not done this but I believe there was a thread here earlier recommending this over the older slide scanners.

Finally, I agree that for preservation and general viewing, the best option at present would be to make photo books of the best family slides/prints and give them to the family. Perhaps one book for every decade in the past and so on. While it is great to look at photos on a television or computer screen, nothing beats holding a paper print in your hand  - for me at least. 

Pradeep
 

by Jeff Colburn on Tue Jan 08, 2019 10:09 am
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Hi,

You should read about the Digital Dark Age. All of the photos we are taking now could be lost.

https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-01-01/ ... l-dark-age
https://www.americanscientist.org/artic ... l-dark-age

Have Fun,
Jeff
Fine Art Prints and Stock Photography of Arizona www.JeffColburn.com See my ebooks in the NatureScapes Store.
 

by Larry Shuman on Tue Jan 08, 2019 2:05 pm
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Richard B. wrote:Thanks Larry. I have all my personal stuff on multiple external drives as backup also, including rotating one copy to my safety deposit box. But what I want to do here is find a way for multiple users to access, load, and view the family images. But I'm not giving access to my computer to all my relatives.

But my real question, is how did you efficiently scan all the old negatives and slides? I assume you are an active photographer so that must a large number of scans?

Richard
I have 2 scanners. I used the Epson PerfectionV700 Photo for the vast amount of scanning. I used my Nikon Coolscan 5000 for any special slides or negatives. When I completed scanning I had scanned 3,517 rolls. The Epson scanner will do 24 color or B+W negs and 12 slides in cardboard mounts. You can create a flicker account and keep up to 1000 images for free. That anyone can access them.
 

by DavidSutton on Tue Jan 08, 2019 2:25 pm
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When you die all your drives, storage and shoe boxes of photos will go to the dump. Any on line accounts (if the companies still exist) will not be maintained. I've seen it a lot.
I was visiting a friend recently and her father's photo albums were brought out. Images mainly from the 1920s and 1930s. Small photos but each notated with date, place and people. Wonderful to look through. Those albums will get passed on to the next generation.
I think if you are trying to save more than a dozen or so photographs per year, at some stage someone is going to hit the "delete" button and put the whole project out of its misery.
David
David Sutton
Website: http://davidsutton.co.nz/
 

by Joel Eade on Wed Jan 09, 2019 6:02 am
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Richard B. wrote:Thanks Joel, I appreciate your help. Apparently what I am looking for is guest privileges for uploading and viewing. Smugmug does allow guests to upload, there is a way to let anyone upload to Google Drive account, and as you say a credentialed person can upload to Zenfolio. I assume credentialed means they have a login to my account. I am not sure how many "guests" in any of these would be allowed to view the folder(s) if they have not been given upload authority.

So unless anyone has another solution, it looks like the best practice is to find which site allows "guest" uploading and viewing if possible, and then to go back to printing a "book" at some regular interval for the future viewing aspect. And also a great idea to corral one of the younger folk into this. I'll post when I get what I think is a reasonable working solution.

Thanks everyone.

Richard

in Zenfolio the access to view or download images from each gallery is set by you.....each one can be set so the public can view or each gallery can be locked with an individual password (someone's Wedding pics or your family stuff). You can also, independent from viewing, set download access to each gallery.  You can also sell prints from Zenfolio.

Uploading or editing galleries just requires your login name and password.
 

by signgrap on Wed Jan 09, 2019 9:04 am
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Richard, now that I have a better understanding of what you're looking for I'll ask, have you looked at a Shutterfly "Share Site"?
Shutterfly is free. Anyone who has a regular Shutterfly account can create a Shutterfly Share Site which is also free. To date I have been free to upload as many Jpeg's of any reasonable size (typically I size my Jpeg image files to 6-8 MB). You can put as much text on a page as you like. The page temples are fairly adaptable. Workflow - Typically I upload my photos to my regular Shutterfly account and import the photos/albums from this account to my Share site. There probably are other ways to do this but haven't taken the time to research how because this works for me.
Our family has created a Share Site on Shutterfly which we've had since 2012.
A bit of history; way back in 1999 I had an Ofoto photo sharing account. A few years later Ofoto was purchased by Kodak Easy Share Gallery. When Kodak went into bankruptcy a number of years later, Shutterfly purchased Kodak Gallery and moved over ALL the photos stored on Kodak servers to the Shutterfly servers at no cost to the members. Just bear this history in mind when you plan for the future and imagine what/who you will depend upon to host your family photos. Change happens rapidly in the digital sphere.
You can setup the Shutterfly Share site any way you like. For our site we have it password protected which requires that an email be sent by the site owner, from the site, in order for the password to work. Just having the password won't get you access to the site - you must be in the list of invited members. It is your call how many site owners there will be (I would advise just a few to start till you understand how everyone will be using the site and what their expectations are; IMO you are NOT trying to recreate Facebook so I would advise against using FB as a model.). Everyone who is a Share site member can be free to do posting/editing of anything on the site. Or they can be restricted to only viewing and or downloading/printing photos. Or the owners/selected members of the site can be the only ones who can edit/post images. There are all sorts of combinations you can setup that allow certain members to do certain things in site management. I would be careful to make sure that only people who have a thorough understanding of how the site works as well a complete understanding of what the site goals are, be allowed to have total site control i.e. be site owners.
Shutterfly also has photo and photo book printing services which are OK - not the greatest printing but for the price is quite good. This is how Shutterfly makes their money. When Shutterfly runs big discounts many of our site members, myself included may buy books because when discounted they are a real bargain. As already mentioned photo books make a great way to store the family photos.
Dick Ludwig
 

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