Get the most out of digital images

Get the most out of digital images
By Maria Puente, USA TODAY 1/21/05

The commercials make it look so easy: Print your digital photos at home. Free! Except they might not last long. But there are some things you can do to enhance the durability of digital photo images, says Peter Roberts, audio visual archivist at the library of Georgia State University in Atlanta:
Use a professional lab to make prints. "Homemade prints generally fade within three to five years because desktop printers use an ink that isn't made to last. In a professional print, you might see fading within 20 years." By contrast, most film prints and slides are still viable decades after they were made. (Related story: Memories gone in a snap)

Periodically refresh images. "If you store them on a CD, burn them onto a new one every three years because the longevity of CDs can vary greatly."

Migrate your data. "Over time, format or hardware may change, so you have to migrate, or transfer, your photos from older storage devices onto new ones so you never reach a point where newer players won't read your storage medium."

Share your images."One way to improve the chance of survival of images is to give copies to family and friends" to save or print. If you use an online photo archive to store your images, "keep your account up to date so family members know where to retrieve files in case something happens to you."