“There are thousands of photos in my phone and I can never find time to print family photos and make an album! Where should I print? How do I start? Which ones to choose?
Oh, honestly This is too much! I’ll do it later!”
Wow! Covid-19 is making daily serious impacts on us, creating more concerns
and even thoughts on ‘how is it going to change the human being … ‘ . we are literally experiencing a new stage in our lives! Interestingly one that we have never thought about… who has ever thought that one day we are banned to simply hug each other or send flowers to our loved ones!
Having said those sentences at the top myself and heard from many friends and families I worked with, I thought to put together simple steps to get you started with one simple task , to finally “Print family photos and make an album” , a simple task everyone always postpone!
A simple, short, daily activity, which not only keep us engaged a little more every day and the outcome would be something to be cherished forever, it would also bring loads and loads of happy memories back, create more laughs and a little reminder of how not to take anything for granted, to be grateful of every single memory we create together.
And that later never happens, the photos gets piled up even more and more! and one day not only that our phone may get lost, or the photos get deleted, much worse is that:
Each precious single moment will get lost in between millions of photos and videos never get seen…
You are not alone! we hear this every day from each other.. that is one of the main problems in the digital age! So many of us keep postponing to print family photos and make an album!
So let’s take advantage of this ‘Stay at Home’ time and create a daily task, only 20 minutes, to finally make that printed album? How to start? How to not feel overwhelmed with how big it may seem?
Let’s do it together, step by step and even make it more fun for everyone to be part of it:
Step 1: Locate your photos
Where are they? On your phone? Camera SD cards? Laptop? How many sources are we talking about?
Make a list, it may be a long term task, so it would be helpful to track the steps and cross them off the list!
(Example: Today we are going through summer 2018 in Mummy’s phone) and go one …
Step 2: Define where to start
You may have already printed up to last year, or a few years ago, so specify the life stages on the queue for printing. (You can always go deeper and specify each event, family gathering, school fair, birthdays and travels to cross them off your list later.)
Only do not confuse yourself with where to start from? Should you start from 3 years ago? The old phone? Or just this year January? Make it as simple as possible to start:
My suggestion is to start with whatever you have in you phone right now, then go to your partner’s phone, then any other camera card or laptop back up or old phones.
Family Photo Game
The most memorable photo of each stage
which photo brings more laughter?
which one has the longest story behind?
Who can talk more about this photo?
and many more …


Step 3:
see it as a FUN group activity
Make it fun for the kids and even for all the family, specify 20 min every day. Telling them they each get to pick their favourite photos and even do it all together. See the photos on a bigger screen or on the phone, make it a fun and happy catch up with all happened in those shots! Let them remember and tell the stories, see who can remember that funny thing happened on the camp, a taste of special food or see what other memories they remember from that event.
May be a PHOTO BREAK from all the school lessons!
I promise it becomes an even more enjoyable habit after a few days! and it may be contagious throughout the extended family too! Encourage everyone to take part and share photos with each other.
Step 4: How to select
Phone has an option of helping you to be organised, putting your favourite photos either in different albums or just in your favourite. For iPhone users, the Heart bottom on the bottom of the screen is the easiest option. Just tap the heart and it goes to your Favourites Album. You can later on put them aside in a separate album, named Print!
Carry on this stage for a week, 20 min a day. Then go through your favourites and decide if you’d like to print them all or not. Then you are ready to go to the next stage!
GOOD NEWS: You have done the hardest part!



Temporarily Pause due to the Covid-19 printing Lab’s closure situation
I know, we have to stop at this point! as most of the Lab’s are unfortunately closed! But the good news is that you have done the difficult step of selecting your photos, the one you always postpone!
I hear you may say but there are some open! and advertising for free prints! why not go ahead with them?
With all respect that the decision is yours, I would suggest not to go with the companies offering 100s of 4×6 free prints! why? Their paper is not archival so it fades by the time and won’t stay there for years!
The next steps are much easier, once the Labs are open I am going to suggest you different local Lab’s and all you need to do is to upload the photos from your phone and have it deliver to your home!

WHY it matters where to order prints from?
Note: Quality paper
Why are we printing the photos? Isn’t it to keep them for future so we can all come back to those moments again and again?
Have you noticed our parents and grandparents photographs are still in a good shape, may be some tears and a bit faded but the details are there, printed deep into the paper! (Those partially faded can mostly be enhanced so may worth a check to the specialist)
So while making a new album, it would be great to consider that we’d like these moments to be seen by our grandchildren and great grandchildren! so The quality Matters!
While we can always find a good quality Lab by searching, there is a simple way to reassure us about the quality:
Step 5: Order prints
TIP 1: Printing Labs usually offer special discount when you print more than 100 for next day or 3 days collection/delivery ( so always check their price cut off ). Did you know you could print 100 photos 4x6in for only £22?
Size: 4×6 is a good standard size. Also the album variety is much easier to find for this size.
Finish: I suggest go for Matt paper, they don’t get finger prints and they tend not to stick to the glass or album plastic! unless you deeply love Gloss paper!

Check the back of your prints, there you could find the paper type. You are good to go when it is written ARCHIVAL!
Printing Tip: SOCIAL MEDIA PHOTOS ARE RESIZED!
Pay attention to the source of the photos. Did you take the photo, is it sent via Email, WhatsApp or social media? they usually get saved to our phone automatically.
More importantly make sure you are printing the photograph not the PRINT SCREEN of the photo!
Please Note the photos sent with any social media, is already resized and it is smaller than your phone camera quality. Once printing them, depends on how much they are resized they may lose their good quality.
What to do:
Firstly if you know who has taken that photo, you could always ask them to email it (with the ACTUAL SIZE selected) .
If you don’t have access to the original photo, they may be OK for standard 4×6 print but don’t go much bigger in that case to avoid having it pixelated.
Once you upload your photos to the Lab, most of the professional lab’s will alarm you that the size is small.
Step 6: Find an album
Oh! That can be a tricky one as I know how picky we all might be! Fining that very special album with a particular color and texture! I am so guilty of this too!
But please don’t stop at this stage! Get an album as quick as you can (maybe not now now!!) and enjoy the next step!
My favourites are the ones with blank pages and to use photo corners!
Here is a link to Etsy shops in the UK who have beautiful photo albums to inspire you more:



Step 7: the most joyous one! Let’s put them together.
Isn’t it a wonderful feeling to hold your precious moments in your hand and think about in what order you’d like to put them together.
Make a fun activity of this stage, take photos of the process, while you are all sitting on the ground going through the hundreds of printed photographs!
and Enjoy!
I’d Love to hear from you and see how did your project go, so please let me know, share and tag me in your posts on Instagram with
#printedfamilyphotos
