You see it everywhere: at the park, the gym, restaurants, concerts, theater productions, weddings, the first day of school, church events and even in your home.
Cell phones being whipped out to capture a quick picture (or 20!).
Those pictures are quickly posted to our favorite social media outlets, looked at for a few hours while people comment on them, and then… well, then what? Maybe you or your child scrolls back through them every so often on your phone, but that’s it.
Considering for many, many moms our phones are our primary cameras (even myself, a professional photographer, takes the bulk of the everyday family snapshots on my phone), we need to talk about getting those pictures off of our phones and into our hands!
With technology constantly changing, failing, being dropped in toilets, lost, etc., the absolute best way to preserve your memories so that your kids can show off their fun childhood to their own kids, is to print.
Thankfully, technology has gifted us with awesome and oh-so-easy ways to do this! Here are just a few favorites.
If You’re on Instagram
The ultimate in convenience is having books designed and printed automatically for you!
BooksTo.Me
Pictures are grabbed from your feed, dropped 1-4 at a time onto a page, and printed into a hard bound, fabric covered, 8×8 book. The paper is archival which is a huge bonus – you want these around for your grandkids and great grandkids to see! The only text in the whole book is the date range printed at the bottom of the first page.
I’ve been getting BooksTo.Me books for about a year and a half now, and my kids go nuts when a new one arrives in our mailbox. Tend to take a lot of pictures of your food and don’t want that? No problem – they have a special hashtag you can use to exclude pictures from the book. BooksTo.Me offers monthly or quarterly plans, and gives the option to reprint favorite books (fun if you take a big family vacation somewhere together).
Chat Books
Pictures are automatically grabbed from your feed, and printed into a 60 page soft cover, 6×6 book. There is one image per page, and Chat Books shoots you a message when you’ve hit the 60 images needed, so that you can jump onto their site and make any last minute changes/add captions/etc before the book ships. Chat Books uses archival materials as well, in hopes that your books will be enjoyed well into the future. One cool perk Chat Books offers is the ability to break books up by specific hashtag! You can set up custom hashtags for Chat Books to follow (example #babyjohn), and then just print a whole babyjohn book for you.
Printing Photos Via An App
Don’t have/use Intsagram enough, or just want to fully control what goes into a book or have the opportunity to order single prints of favorite pictures from your phone? Most of the big photo retailers have an app now, so let’s look at two lesser known companies.
Artifact Uprising
Photographer friends of mine give this company rave reviews! They love their books and square prints especially. The Artifact Uprising app is only available for iPhone currently, which is a bummer for those of us that have Androids! However, if you look at their site, and really fall in love with their product offerings, you can always do things the old school way of uploading via your computer.
Chat Books
In addition to their automatic Instagram service, Chat Books also has an app (for both iPhone and Android) that allows you to create custom books right from your phone. You can use as few as 35 photos, and as many as 365. The book is automatically laid out in chronological order, and then you can do quick edits, and add captions if you wish.
Other Fun Printing Options – Phone or Camera pictures
Sometimes you just want a new and different way to print your pictures, whether they were taken with your trusty cell phone or with your camera. Here are a few options beyond the usual websites people turn to.
Pinhole Press
Options abound on their site! They have fun album options that are especially great for small kids, calendars, even a way to make a match game using your own photos. Well worth a look when you’re looking for something different for yourself or for a gift.
MixBook
I love this website for creating super fast but very customizable photo books. They have a range of quality options, from lay flat full spreads, to soft cover books, and you can even choose a leather cover. No software to install, as it’s all done from their website. You can start with one of their many designs and customize from there, or start completely from scratch.
mPix
This is the lab I recommend to all of my photography clients, as I love the quality product they put out. Their shipping is super fast, especially to those of us living in Kansas City, as mPix is in Pittsburg, Kan.! They have plenty of fun products and beautiful prints to choose from.
There you have it, now go get your photos printed! Love a smaller company/app/service that wasn’t mentioned? Share the tip the in the comments please!
, we need to talk about getting those pictures off of our phones and into our hands!){kind=link}