Say, "Cheeeese."

Photo by SqueakyMarmot

You remember the days.

Your camera used film, which meant you had to wait a whole three days to see how the photos you took of that once-in-a-lifetime, never-to-be-repeated moment turned out. And if your grandma's eyes were closed or you put your finger over the flash...well...you could at least cling to the memory and point to the photo that looked like the moon on a foggy night and say, "Really! That was the moment he smiled for the first time!" And no one would tell you it looked any different.

Now that digital cameras have annihilated the use of film cameras, (is "film" even still a word?) you have nothing to worry about. Almost.

While we now have the luxury of snapping pictures in real time--and can actually document events and replay them in flipbooks--we, as a picture-taking generation, are guilty of making two costly mistakes when it comes to photos.

1. We fail to print pictures. Yes, we take twice as many. (Or, in some cases, we take 1600 times as many.) But our albums stand empty on the shelves. And really, what's the point of having 200 shots of a birthday party if later, we can't produce one photo to prove we were there?

2. We fail to back up photos stored on our computers. One crash and the last 6 years are gone.

There is hope. We can remedy both of these problems. But there is no time like the present.