Photo by Brandi Jordan

Summertime is the perfect time for capturing special moments with your friends and family on camera.  Whether you are using an expensive digital camera with a host of lenses, or your camera of choice is your phone, preserving those memories is important.  When it comes to storing those pictures you have a few options.  Check out some of the new favorites, as well as some tried and true digital picture storage places.

On Disk or Drive

This is the traditional and back-up method for storing your digital photographs and for good reason.  Download your pictures onto your camera and store them on your hard drive, burn a CD, or download them to an external storage device.  Taking a few minutes to make sure you have copies of them will provide peace of mind should your computer ever be damaged.

Photo Printing Sites

Places like kodakgallery.com, smugmug.com, and snapfish.com were rather clever when they decided to offer members free storage of their digital pictures.  Not only do they provide you with a safe place to store them, but they make it easy to order prints and products right from their site.  This is a great option if you tend to order prints, give photo gifts, or would like to have a password protected online album that you can share with friends and family.

Strictly Sharing

If you just want a place to store your photos, but not print them out, there are other options available.  Flickr.com and PhotoBucket.com are two of the most common and even have downloadable smartphone apps that make storing pictures a breeze.  You can set up private albums and choose who gets to see your pictures.

Choose the storage method (or methods!) that work best for you and stick with them.  You will rest easy knowing that all of those precious photo memories will be safe for years to come.  What is your storage method of choice?  Share with us!