How Many Pictures Do You Take With Your Digital Camera Each Year?

I read in Family Circle magazine that "digital camera users typically add 500 images to their computer's hard drive every year."

I like what they said next:

...which means we're fast creating the virtual equivalent of the picture-filled shoeboxes in our closets.

How many pictures do you take daily?... weekly?... yearly?

And what are you doing with all of those images?

My Digital Photo Stats

I've had a digital camera since May 24, 2003.

Since that day, I've taken 23,172 digital images (...actually more, those are just the ones I've saved).

That averages out to over 5,000 digital pictures each year!

But then, I'm not the norm. I take my digital camera with me everywhere I go! And I'm not embarrassed to whip it out, even in some of the most inopportune times.

But I am so thankful for those times that I've been in the right time at the right place and managed to capture a digital image of something.

Yep, my digital images mean so much to me. I treasure them dearly. In many ways... my life can be relived through those photographs. (More on that later.)

The fact of the matter is... with our Canon Digital Rebel, we take nearly 10,000 pictures each year. That's because Jim takes his own share of digital pictures when he's "on the job" at IHRA drag racing events. He's averaging about 5,000 digital images a year, too! (The Canon Digital Rebel rocks!!!)

How Do You Organize All Those Photos?

From Day One, I've used Adobe Photoshop Album (not the same as Adobe Photoshop) to organize all of my photos on my hard drive.

It's completely AWESOME. I use the $30 paid-for program, rather than the free version. Many computers & software bundles these days come with the free Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition. You may want to try it!

It's great because you can edit and organize all your digital photos right in one place.

The only glitch as I see it: I heard they're discontinuing the Photo Album program and incorporating it into the "better" Adobe Photo Elements program instead. Not that I've ever had to use support, but that would mean there'd be no support for Photo Album at some point. (I've used this program for 5 years, without incident... I just love it!)

My Complete Digital Photo Collection

The truth is, I have over 27,000 digital images stored inside my Adobe Photo Album program!

This includes over 4,000 additional photos that were not taken with a digital camera.

Some, were actual photographs (taken with my "older" cameras, or received from friends & relatives) that I scanned myself then saved as digital images on my computer's hard drive.

Others, were professionally scanned at a photo lab and saved onto CD. I then imported those images from CD onto my computer's hard drive.

Actually, when I worked at the photo lab, I scanned hundreds of my old "photo negatives" and stored the professional-quality digital images onto CD's. Those, I later imported those onto my computer's hard drive. (At the time, it only cost a few cents per photo to scan the actual negatives.)

The best part of all this: All of my photos are now organized (and "tagged" for easy retrieval when I'm searching for a certain photo, or certain "type" of photo) in my favorite photo organization program: Adobe Photo Album.