Organize Your Vacation Photos

Put Your Vacation Photos in Albums

Now that your photos are tucked away in their boxes, you can pull only your favorites, maybe 10 or 20, to put in a mini-album for easy and repeated viewings. Consider making an album devoted only to one trip, using books slightly larger than the photos themselves; this will keep the project more manageable, and mini-albums are more portable for those eat-your-heart-out showings at the office.

Sketchbooks with ring bindings, available at art-supply stores, make ideal mini-albums. Simply paste photos down with an acid-free glue stick and then remove any pages you haven't filled.

Mini-albums are great for showing off highlights of your trip, but that requires being in the same room with your important others. For those long-distance loved ones who won't believe you white-watered through the Grand Canyon until they see proof, other tactics must be employed.

On the low-tech side is the frequent-flyer flyer. After returning from a trip to Japan with her husband and son, a friend of mine cut up some photos of them at different temples and sushi palaces, pasted them on paper with funny captions, and then created color-photocopy collages for her pals.

Store and Share Your Images Online

The Internet makes it even easier to share photos. You don't need to have a digital camera to take part in the electronic exchange or be techno-literate. Many laboratories will scan your conventional photographs onto a CD-ROM, so that you can download images on your computer and send them via e-mail or post them on a website.

When you get your Kodak film processed, in addition to conventional photographs, you can request a picture CD, which allows you to touch up (goodbye red eye) and crop pictures on your computer or to make a "slide show" presentation of the entire roll (it's a more advanced way to bore friends than with your parents' carousels of vacation slides). Or at the lab, request that Kodak put the pictures directly online at picturecenter.kodak.com, where friends can view the shots and even order prints directly, preventing you from getting stuck with the dreary errand and the expense.