You’ve anxiously awaited the delivery of your photos from your family photography session with Stephanie George Photography. You now have many images to enjoy and cherish which capture this particular time in your life.

But what next?

Group of leather and linen photo albums from family photography session

Most importantly, back-up your photos from your family photography session

How you store your digital files is an important part of preserving your photo session and in turn your family’s memories and history. There’s nothing worse than losing your photos after investing time and money into having them taken; it’s a heartbreaking experience. This is why it’s important to always store your digital photos in more than one place (I recommend an external hard drive and some kind of cloud storage).

Store your digital family photos on an external hard drive

In this digital age, all of us are guilty of using our phones and computers as storage devices. While these devices make our images portable and easy to share, they are not always reliable forms of storage. Computers can crash and phone storage run short.

External hard drives can hold thousands of images, are small, portable, and readily available to purchase from Amazon or Costco. Since photographs from a professional photographer will be large in size, they can take up a lot of space on your personal computer (causing it to run slow if it is overloaded). External hard drives are much less expensive than upgrading your computer’s hard drive.

There are also a multitude of online/cloud storage options such as Google Photos, Dropbox, Amazon Photos, and iCloud. These services not only give you peace of mind for storing a duplicate copy of your photos, but are also accessible to you while on the go, making it easy to share your photos with family and friends.

Next, sort through your photos and select your favorites

As a lifestyle family photographer, I love to capture details and a variety of expressions. I don't want to limit the number of images in your gallery; instead, I let you choose and enjoy your favorites.

After viewing your gallery (and downloading and backing up your images), I strongly encourage you to sort through your images, selecting those you absolutely love and copying them to an easily accessible folder.

After you have narrowed your gallery down to your favorites, view your selected images and ensure you have variety throughout. For instance, select a favorite from each “pose” that took place during your session (standing, sitting, action shot, different groupings of family members, etc.). Be sure to include detail shots and any images which help “tell the story” of your session.

Now you will have an easily accessible and narrowed down folder to turn to when you want to create a commemorative post for father’s day/mother’s day, birthdays, and celebrations. It saves you time and energy from going through a multitude of images to find your favorites.

Finally, print photos from your gallery

Printing your photos is the final step in ensuring not only you but your whole family sees and enjoys them. Although we look at our phones and computer screens every day, there is something about a physical print that truly brings your family’s portraits to life.

Since sessions with Stephanie George Photography include digitals, you are free to print your images wherever you like. This offers convenience and flexibility when your child has a quick project for school and needs photos for a poster board that represent the family.

Archival quality prints from professional photo lab in a variety of sizes for school portraits

However, when it comes time to print images for a wall display, to gift to family, or view in a beautiful album, I am here to help! You have invested not only money but your valuable time in finding, hiring, and utilizing a professional photographer, now you want the images we created together to reflect what you received in your online gallery.

Consumer labs (such as Target, Walgreens, or Costco) have generic settings used to print every order they receive (from cell phone images to presentation graphics); they sharpen and saturate for contrast regardless of whether the files they receive have been carefully and professionally edited or not. This unfortunately can result in dark, oversaturated, and contrasty prints.

Grouping of yearly family photo albums from family photography session with Stephanie George Photography

Interior spread of a family photo album; preserve your photos

What you put on your walls or display on your coffee table should be thought of as art. It’s worth investing a little more to make sure your final products are something you can be proud of and enjoy every day. You can purchase prints and products straight from your delivered gallery and have confidence knowing they will be archival with beautiful color and quality.

Need help deciding which pictures to print for your wall display?