How to Use Your Photos After You Get Them Back from Your Photographer

So you had this amazing photography experience, whether it was for your wedding, engagement, or to update your family photos. You get that email notification that your online photo gallery is ready. You can’t click on the link fast enough. You scroll through all the photos… and you. are. OBSESSED.

But now what?

What do you do with all these photos after you get them back from your photographer? How do you keep them safe? How can you show them off without feeling like you’re dumping them all in an Instagram post or Facebook album?

So in today’s post, you’re going to learn:

• my favorite ways keep your photos safe
• my favorite ideas of what to do with your photos so they don’t stay stuck in an online gallery forever.

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Back them up.

The worst thing that can happen is you lose your photos. Forever. Can you even imagine?! Sadly it does happen. So let’s prevent it from happening.

Here’s how to back your photos up and ensure that they don’t disappear:

1. Download all your photos from your online gallery.
2. Save them on your computer.
3. Then save them to a cloud service like Dropbox, Google, Amazon, iCloud, etc.. 
4. Bonus tip: Save them to an external hard drive, too.
5. The more places you have your photos saved, the more secure and safe they are.

Print them in a professional album.

Your photographer may offer album printing for you, and if so, definitely have a chat with them about how that works. If not, you can always print the images and compile them in an album yourself. You could go the OG way: buy a pretty album, print hard copies of the photos, and then slide the prints in the album sleeves. Or you could build one online and have it printed and shipped to you. My best advice will be to print your album through your photographer if that’s a service they offer. Other recommendations are printing them through Artifact Uprising, mPix, or Blurb.

Use one or two on your holiday greeting cards.

If you send out holiday greeting cards, find designs that will allow you to add 1+ photos. Choose some of your favorite photos and add them to the card. Your friends and family will love getting these in the mail and seeing fresh photos of you.  Minted, Shutterfly, Tiny Prints, and Paper Culture are all great places to have your cards printed.

Use one or two on your thank you cards for all those wedding gifts you received.

Just married and looking at your list of thank you cards you need to write? Why not design a Thank You card, and like your holiday greeting card, add your favorite wedding photo to the card? That way your guests can relive a moment from your wedding with you as they read your words of gratitude. This would also be a great chance to thank them for attending your wedding if they were able to do so. Again, Minted, Shutterfly, Tiny Prints, and Paper Culture are all great places to have your cards printed.

Frame one, and gift it to each set of parents as a thank you.

Print one of your favorite photos, choose a pretty frame to display it in, wrap it up, and gift it to each set of parents as a thank you for their love and support. And if you’re looking for what to do with your family photos, I guarantee you that the grandparents will not complain if you gift them a framed photo of the grandkids “just because”.

Print your favorites and arrange them on a gallery wall.

Choose your favorite photos, print them, and arrange them on a gallery wall in your home. The good news is that you can update the photos seasonally or each time you have new photos taken, but you won’t have to buy new frames each time.

My favorite places to have your photos printed:

• Your photographer! (This is my top recommendation because many photographers, like myself, are able to print photos through the best of the best printers that are only accessible to photographers.)
• mPix
• Artifact Uprising

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Ok those are my top tips on what to do with your photos after you get them back from your photographer. Which one is your favorite?