Organizing and Sharing Family Vacation Photos

By Janine Warner

In ancient times, travelers spun fantastical tales of their journeys, using oil paintings or wood-carvings to give their audiences a visual token of their adventures in foreign lands. Your family trips might not seem as eventful as these great epics, but you do have one huge advantage over those old-time travelers: You can tell your tales with digital photos that you can "ship" right to the homes of your friends and family via the Internet.

Whether you lazed by a pool, took a jam-packed road trip, or traveled to a far-away country or resort with your kids, you've probably snapped your fair share of candid shots and posed portraits during your travels. But now that you're home, the thought of sorting through all your pictures might bring on the urge for another vacation.

Don't fret. If you use the tricks of seasoned storytellers like magazine and newspaper editors, you can quickly sort through your photos and transform your stacks of unruly snapshots into a compelling online photo story. Not only will your cherished memories be preserved. But your "What we did on our summer vacation..." stories will actually make your friends and family feel like they were there -- from the breath-taking sites to silly mishaps to once-in-a-lifetime moments.

Step 1: Only the best will do
If you're still shooting with film, many developing services will save your photos to a CD, making it easy to start organizing your vacation pictures on your computer. If you've graduated to a digital camera, you'll likely have many great photos to choose from because most families with digital cameras tend to take more pictures than the average roll of film will hold.

The flip side is that the more photos you take during your vacation, the more images you'll have to sort through. The secret to a great photo story is to only include the winners. This way you save your friends and family the tedium of viewing every snapshot and outtake from your vacation.

As you sort through your pictures, consider what were the most exciting, memorable, relaxing, or funny moments during your vacation. You might want to even jot down a quick recap of your vacation highlights (remember to ask your kids for their favorite stops and memories). This list can help you decide which photos to keep.

You'll probably want to make sure you have at least one image of everyone who went on the trip, but you don't have to show a different photo of each person in front of the Eiffel Tower. (Here's a tip: Next time, make sure to get a group shot at each major location so you'll have one keepsake photo of a main attraction instead of a whole roll or full digital camera memory card.)

Try to include at least one image from each key place you visited, but you don't have to represent them equally in your collection. For example, if the photos you took in the beautiful early morning light on the beach came out great, and the photos you took driving through town under the high noon sun look washed out, include more of those ocean views.

Step 2: Touch up your favorites
Even if you're just planning to post your photos on a popular service like Flickr or Shutterfly, almost every digital camera, photo-sharing web site, or image editing software that you might already have on your computer, comes with some quick and easy touch-up features.

For example, for Mac users, iPhoto allows you to remove red eye, and even sharpen images that aren't quite in focus. So do web sites like Kodak Gallery and ShutterFly. At the very least, most family snapshots are improved by cropping. So nix the red eye and try to cut out distracting backgrounds to make your photos look sharper.

Step 3: Map out your story
Now that you have a great selection of images to work with, it's time to get creative. Think about: How do you want to tell your story?

One of your most important decisions is which photo to show first. An image that captures the energy and feeling of your trip may be the most dramatic way to start, especially if it gets a laugh.

Resist the routine of showing your images in chronological order or to start with a photo of the most famous site you saw. Instead, catch people's attention with a sequence that captures the essence of your vacation. Like a photo of your sun-bathing daughter's shocked expression when your son poured cold water on her back, followed by the shot of her chasing him into the ocean, and the a final shot of them body surfing together.

Step 4: Share your travel pics online
When you're ready to share your vacation pictures, you can easily upload digital images to any number of the free online photo sites already mentioned. Photo editing software usually has a slideshow option -- as do photo-sharing web sites.
If you want to show off your photos in person, burn them to a CD or DVD so you can play them on your friend's computers when you visit.

If you don't have a slideshow feature to work with, to get your digital images to display in the order you want, include a number at the beginning of each photo name. For example you might name them like this: 1-Susie shocked, 2-Ocean chase, 3-Body surfing.

Next, write captions for each of your photos to remind you of the fun times had by all (and to trigger other details of your story that you'd like to share when showing the pictures in person). On free sites such as Flickr you can upload your photos, and then order them as you like using the Organize and Group tabs, which allow you to add your photo titles and captions all at once, for example. Just follow the clear instructions on the site. But if you want grandma to be able to order her own copy of your photo story -- with the captions and dates printed on the back of prints -- you might be better off organizing your vacation photos on a site like Shutterfly.

When you've posted your photos online, create an email message to invite friends and family to view your online photo album. Although you don't want to overload anyone's email box with tons of photos, including one image by inserting it into your message can liven up your invitation, and make everyone want to see the rest of your pictures. On Flickr, people can even comment on your photos.

Before you know it, your trip will inspire your friends' to ask you for your travel agent's name or trip details so they can live out your dream vacation for themselves.