Many options available for saving old photos

Some of our most valuable possessions are our memories. These memories are of varying occasions or events that have contributed to making our lives and us who we are today. More often than not, there are photographs or songs that capture the essence of those moments in time.
There are digital options to preserving or enhancing those memories. If you are like me, then many of your family photos are just, spread throughout your family. So the first thing that you must do is track down all of the family albums and convince your relatives that you will return the pictures unharmed. Once you have the pictures in hand you must then decide which option that you would like to pursue.
The first thing that you could ask yourself is whether or not you want something simple or possibly a little more complex like music along with the photographs. If you answered simple, then the total project time is decreased. The minimum components that you should have in addition to the obvious computer, is a scanner and a CD burner. Now someone many ask can I use a 3.5mm floppy diskette. The concern with the floppy is its’ limitations as far as the number of pictures that you can save on each diskette. You can save more pictures on a CD. With that said, you can simply scan the pictures to your hard drive then copy them on to a CD. There are many places that will do this for you, for a fee, but where is the fun in that?
For those that have Windows XP, you have a few options at your disposal. Windows has a program called Plus! Photo Story. This application will allow you to string your family pictures together in a movie like manner. You are even given the option to narrate a story while viewing the photos or you could apply background music if you so choose. Macintosh computers have a comparable application for their systems.
For those that do not have the options listed above on their computer, do not be disheartened. There is plenty of digital family photo album software on the market. For those that have Microsoft PowerPoint or similar presentation type software on their computer, this too can be used. It may lack the some of the panache that XP and OS has but it is a step above just burning each individual picture to a CD. Using PowerPoint, at least you will be able to save all of your pictures to one file and view it as a slideshow. An added bonus is that you can also email PowerPoint slideshows just as you can Plus! Photo Story files. This affords you an easy and inexpensive option when it is time to distribute your finished product to your masses of relatives. Regardless of which manner that you choose to compile, reproduce, and preserve your family photos, it will be superior to doing nothing.