With today’s digital photography and the many storage options such as computer HDDs, flash disks, memory cards, CDs and DVDs, most people take photos and store them in digital format without a thought of producing them. Some people store photos in digital format as they seek to lower their carbon footprint (photo paper comes from trees), but there are several reasons why you should get your photographs developed.

Developing Photographs

  • You should develop your photos and arrange them in photo albums or photo frames because an album and a photo frame will be seen everyday. Many of you will confess that they seldom get to see or show their friends photos that are stored on DVDs, computer hard disk drives, and other storage media. What good is a photo if you never get to see it?

 

  • One of the greatest dangers of storing your photos in digital format is that there is always a risk of the data getting lost through a computer virus or other malware, destruction of the storage media (such as a scratch on a DVD), sabotage and carelessness (such as accidental formatting). There is also a risk of loss of the storage media (such as losing your phone with all the photos in the memory card therein). Photos capture memories that cannot be replicated. You will avoid these problems if you get your photographs developed.

 

  • Most of us have grown up around printed photographs. A photo on the computer simply does not have the same effect as a photo on a photo album or a photo frame. A baby is cuter on a photo frame or on canvas.

 

  • Developing photographs is not as expensive as it used to be and cost should never be your reason not to have your photographs produced. Photo printing technology has come a long way and inkjet photo printers are readily available at a good price. Whether you have invested in a darkroom or a photo printer, developing your own photos is advantageous in that you get to save money, you get to develop whatever pictures you want in privacy, you will have more control over what the photo will look like (you can edit before development) and it is fun.

Technology is meant to offer greater convenience and cost benefits, but sometimes old is gold. There is a danger of technology changing the way we live and the way we do things when nothing warrants such changes.