Skybird- That is an incredible photo, it belongs on the front of a Jackson Hole travel brochure. Also, I will not be claiming a rear. J- Dog photos!! How adorable Pablo is! The best kid book I've ever read is entitled "Skippyjon Jones" and its about a siamese cat who keeps pretending he is a chihuahua. Your photo reminded me of it with your Pablocito cavorting around the house in his food tub. Dafygardennut- Your daughters are beautiful (like their mom), they look a lot like you, especially the one on the left. Stevation- The photos on your site are incredible, what are you shooting with? What a handsome family! I'm still waiting (in vain) for a kiddo with my hubby's eyes. I tell him he has sold me a phony bill of goods and he has to make good on his "promises" but he knows my threats are empty. Two kiddos are enough he tries to tell me. Bonnie- You have a beautiful smile and I love your dimple. Digit- I love the curls, the hats, chubby baby legs, buckets of sunflowers and the quickness you removed the photos. Around here, you snooze or you lose! Aliceg8- Chance is adorable and lucky to have you snuggling him in that photo, does he hate the snow?

Doris if you have the same or similar software as my HP scanner try doing this or similar to make your scanner do it's scan. Set to scan and I have a small window appear. Click the Preview button and a scan is created onscreen. By default mine is set to 200% size increase but I rarely accept that but you need to scan the same picture at various settings until you are satisfied, then scan. Once you find the acceptable magnification then you can do all your scans. As I have said, I like to scan to create quite large files with the knowledge that I can downsize for any computer based use. So if you intend to do any photo editing you might be wise to scan large then downsize those you place on Facebook or the group you belong to. Also when I downsize I use 'Save as..' add a letter after the numeric name or a number after a word name so my original is not lost and both versions remain together when viewed on Windows Explorer.

Camlan: you are one awesome ~ and super organized~ person! You've inspired me and I love your ideas and system!!! I'm following your system. After I read your suggestions, I ran down to the local Dollar Tree where I picked up 10 large plastic shoe boxes, ($10) which will temporarily hold my photos as I sort through them. I also bought 2 packs of (20 total) manila file folders ($2) that I'm going to cut up into dividers for each box to categorize the pics by year and then subcategories for events, holidays and whatever. I like your idea about scanning the best onto flash drives. I can store the master FD in our safe deposit box, I guess. I'd like to create DVDs with special events, holidays, vacations on them vents on them and then make copies for our two kids . . . eventually. I just went back to look at my intimidatingly huge box of photos and I'm so glad that I now have a plan of action to deal with them! Thank you for taking the time to put your ideas down for me and for many of us here who are in similar situations. I really appreciate it! Now, has anybody created their own DVD's from their scanned photos? I do want to make up some myself. I'm too frugal and too creative to have some company do it for me . . . but is it very difficult to do if you have a good photo scanner? Did you use any special program? DLM: I totally agree with you, I know many people that would love to hire Camlan to do this for them. Goldie: good luck with your own project. And, yes, definitely archival-quality albums and photo boxes. Eandhl: good idea and one I'm going to use: get rid of all copies (and similar) photos right away. Thanks! Dedtired: I'm right there with you regarding the albums. I've run out of space for more! Lynn

Realize that CS5 is a full suite of products, mostly geared towards graphics and publication. Within CS5, Photoshop is the same...really geared towards graphics, but good for photo manipulation too. But if you can get it for a decent price, then have at it. I use Photoshop (via CS4) quite a bit, yet again, for photos you'll barely scratch the surface of the what the software can do. Good news is that there are plenty of tutorials both on Adobe's website as well as other websites, even YouTube has an extensive collection of PS tips to get you started. Scnners, it depends on what you'll be scanning. Just prints, or negatives, or slides? I have an Epson V700, about $500. Excellent for all three. Scanning while using the scanners dust/scratch auto removing functions can really slow a scan down. By a factor of...many! Seriously, it might take 20 seconds for a "regular" scan, but then use the built-in correcting software and it can take several minutes. That's true with every scanner. You might find that the correction software actually softens the scan a bit when trying to do dust removal, etc, so sometimes I just scan a straight file and use photoshop. If you will be scanning hundreds or thousands of prints/slides, there are scanners that can to batch processing. Set and forget, come back in a half hour, reload and let it run again. When shopping, keep an eye on the dpi rating. Some are "true" dpi counts, other scanners have "interpolated" dpi. In my opinion, interpolated doesn't really do you much good in the real world scheme of things. While this may sound frilly, consider wearing white cotton gloves, especially if doing negatives or slide scanning. It helps prevent you from getting body oil on any film or on the scanner glass. Sounds silly, but when doing good scans these things show up, and they are the last thing you want to see after waiting 30 minutes for a batch scan to finish. Be wary of Amazon, There prices are fine and all, but their packing for shipping is just atrocious. I'll order all sorts of stuff from them, but I'm hesitant when it comes to delicate stuff. Check out B and H, good company and excellent packaging. Lastly...not sure what you have for a computer, but when getting into high end scanning, file manipulation (Photoshop) and printing, try to calibrate your monitor. That way what you see on your monitor (pixel coloration) is what will come out of the printer. Sorry to drone on, best of luck! It's enjoyable to resurrect old photos.