•    We have pictures captured on a memory card and we need to do something with them in order to share and preserve them.
•    The steps used to accomplish this are what we call a "Workflow" and they should be consistent, repeatable and as close to automatic as possible.
•    The outcome should provide adequate back-up and archiving of the image files and make finding those files easy in the future

Let’s start with preservation. We need to make sure that there are multiple backups of our image files. Why backup our image files? Because the odds of your computer's hard drive crashing are 100%. All hard drives will crash at some point, they aren't made to last forever. And when a drive crashes there is slim chance that all of your files can be recovered.

Basic Protection: Burn CD's or DVD's and burn two copies. Store one set of the disks off site, that way a flood, fire or other tragedy can't take both the computer AND the backup disks. Better: Use a USB hard drive as one of your backup copies. It's much faster to copy image files to a hard drive compared to burning a CD or DVD. These hard drives come in two common types: Standard USB hard drives which use AC power and Portable USB hard drives which are powered by the computer through the USB connection. The Portable USB drives are smaller than a paperback book while the Standard USB drives are physically larger but pack more GB of storage per dollar spent.

Managing the Workflow process is the job of software programs. Some software can be found free such as Google's Picasa while others have a purchase price. Free software options are handy but very limited in capability. For the most part they are incapable of pixel-level editing. In other words you can crop and color correct, add special effects and text but you can't remove an object from your image and replace the background.

Basic Management Software: For years now Adobe's Photoshop Elements has been a favorite entry level software package. Selling for under $100, Elements is highly capable. Included with the software is the Adobe Organizer, a wonderful image library manager. The Organizer can handle almost any task thrown at it from tagging and renaming image files to burning CD / DVD's and even uploading images to online photo albums. Most family photographers will find that Elements is the only software package they will ever need.

Advanced Management Software: For photographers who need more control and options Adobe offers a step up management software called Adobe Lightroom. Lightroom takes image file management and adds in global editing, DVD slide show creation and a host of other features. Lightroom can be used stand alone for image library management or it will work hand in hand with Photoshop CS or Photoshop Elements when either program is used as a picture editor.

Basic Image Editing: After storing our images and backing them up its time to edit them if we wish. As mentioned earlier there are significant differences in editing capabilities between programs. When we mention editing most people think of something like switching around the heads of Aunt Harriet and Uncle Albert in a picture. This is an example of pixel-level editing. However editing also includes color correction, sharpening, adding text or borders, removing objects and replacing the background and so on.

The image editor in Photoshop Elements (mentioned above) is powerful and easy to use, yet it has most of the same capabilities as its more expensive sibling Photoshop CS. With the built-in Organizer Elements is a complete Workflow solution.

Advanced Image Editing Adobe's Photoshop CS is the gold standard in image editing. There has been more ink dedicated to writing about this software program than any other I believe. Truly a package that is tough to outgrow, CS has more capabilities and tricks than anything I've seen to date. Photoshop is an expensive program with CS4 going for $649 while the newer CS5 sells for over $800. The version differences are great for the professional designer, but for the avid or family photographer not so much. Save the bucks and go with CS4 while you can!
Words of Caution: Free Web Storage

I'd like to add a few words of caution about relying on web-based image storage.

First, free online storage sites will most often downsize your images before posting them (Facebook for example). Your picture taken with a 10MP camera will be reduced to less than 1MP.

Second, There is usually no guarantee of permanence. These sites make no assurance that your pictures will be safe and in fact they have been known to go out of business (i.e. Yahoo Pictures) and you lose all your images if no other company purchases their servers and website. Paid storage sites DO offer some assurances of safety and they usually don't downsize images. Just don't miss any payments or your image files may be held hostage for back payments plus huge late fees!

By and large, free online image storage should be viewed as a means to share images not as a way to preserve them. Porter's offers free unlimited web storage like many photo website. But we promote it as a way to share images and as a way to order photo products, not for permanent archiving.