How to Bring Your Memories to Life: Great Ideas for Printed Photographs

*Remunerated Post*

With the advent of digital photography, followed by hi-res smartphones and tablets, some thought the era of printed photographs might be over – well, photo printing is alive and well and definitely something for you to consider! There are many options out there that can bring your memories to life beyond ‘the small screen’, all things that I’ve used over the past year to great success.

Photo Calendars

Something I do every year is order photo calendars for my family. With my mum having had seven children who have – thus far – given her ten grandchildren, collating the best shots of all of the grandkids into a calendar and sending a copy to everyone in the family is a great way to share these pictures all year round while providing a practical addition to our respective kitchens or offices.

Framed Prints

A printed picture in a frame makes a beautiful gift – this year, Rex started ‘big school’ and as the packages offered directly by the photographer didn’t suit our needs, we bought a digital copy of his photo, arranged printing and framing through a third party and got exactly what we needed for a much-appreciated present for both sets of grandparents.

Personalised Cards

As a first, this year I’ve ordered personalised Christmas cards based on a picture that was taken of our family at the Stourhead Christmas Light Trail. The picture was too lovely to not share and simply sending it on a text or WhatsApp didn’t do it justice. I added some text on Bonusprint’s easy-to-use card maker app, chose from a range of size and material options, and had my wonderful personalised cards delivered quickly. I’ve always shied away from doing this until now because I thought the cost would be excessive but, having looked further into it, prices were actually very reasonable and far less per unit than buying individual generic cards from elsewhere.

Photo Books

One of the biggest winners for our family has been a printed monthly photobook for Ross’ Auntie Sylvia, who lives in Hastings. With us in Somerset, Ross’ sister in Berkshire and their parents in Dorset, none of us get to see Sylvia as often as we would like but we are able to collaborate in creating a photobook to keep her in the loop each month, so she can see how her grand-nieces and grand-nephews are coming along. We know she always looks forward to getting this as it is a definite highlight for her.

Why Print?

It’s not just the older generations who appreciate printed photography. While many of those who appear to spend the majority of their life on a smartphone might ‘snap and store’ on their mobile, printing those special shots offers a chance to plaster pictures in books, lockers, at desks or on bedroom walls. In fact, both of my children do this very thing – Grace has pictures of her friends everywhere whilst Rex loves seeing the pictures of his grandparents smiling at him when he gets up each morning.

Don’t get me wrong – smartphones are incredible works of technology and the quality of the cameras on the higher end devices is truly remarkable but this can’t overcome the fact that even on the biggest phones, the screen is just too small to do proper justice to pictures. Even tablets, which can offer a comparable size to most hard copy pictures, don’t create the feeling that holding a hard copy picture in your hand does. From colours to contrast and beyond, looking at a picture on a screen just isn’t the same. In a world now dominated by screens, a proper picture that you can hold becomes a thing of rare beauty.

There’s also a practical argument to be made for hard-copy pictures over computer files. Admittedly pictures may fade in time, or get lost or damaged, but let’s not pretend soft files on computers are infallible. Files can corrupt, be accidentally altered and saved over or even deleted. The device on which they are stored, be it laptop, phone, tablet or external storage device, can corrupt, be lost or damaged itself, so having hard copies of your finest photos is a way to ensure the best memories are well protected.

“Way back when”, photography was a costly trial-and-error process. With a roll of 24 pictures which you could snap but not see until they were printed, you never knew if the packet you got back from your local printer would contain a high ratio of duds. Combining digital photography with printing, you’re able to choose the very best of your best pictures to print, guaranteeing 100% satisfaction with what you get back in hard copy.