There's Got to be an Easier Way Wisconsin

In a day and age when some ask if we're taking too many photos because we can—the next step for the industry is to provide consumers with a better way to manage their photos.

In the old days, when families went on vacation or celebrated events in their lives and wanted to share those photos, they set up the movie or slide projector and screen and dimmed the lights.

In the heyday of 1-hour printing, it was easy enough to carry around a roll's worth of prints to show off. Just as easy was shipping off copies to the "celebrity" in the photo [read: family member or friend].

Photos have always held a special place for my family. My grandparents home had one entire wall filled with family photos. My grandmother was the quintessential ideal customer. Framed photos hung on the wall and sat atop the piano, albums bursting at the seams were stored in the closet, and a mini-album (brag-book) was always in her purse. Her Polaroid camera accompanied her to every family party, special event, or gathering and was pulled out when visitors came or family assembled for a special dinner.

With digital, we're taking hundreds more pictures every time we turn on the camera. But what are we doing with them? It runs the gamut from having a few printed out, uploading them all to a web gallery (and sending the link to the rest of us to view), burning a CD, viewing on a digital frame, to downloading to a computer for printing on plain paper, or worst of all, leaving them on the card in the camera, because its not filled up yet. I've seen it all.

There are software solutions and many consumers use the ones that came with their camera or computer. However, I've talked too many people through the maze of where to find their photos because they don't have a clue as to where the software downloaded the files! While the industry works on making image management software easier to use for the average consumer, there must be other solutions.

And while different folks have different habits—and there's not one right way—there's also not one easy way to manage all of these images we're capturing. Or maybe there is—print them. Printing photos is one of the easiest ways to share images, and with the low cost at retail, its also one of the more affordable ways to view, share and most of all, save these images so they can be shares with loved ones in the future.

Best,