Videos Archives - Save Your Photos

Jan 31 2018

Save Your Photos: Video Slideshows and Montages

When you combine photos, videos, oral narratives and music into a video slideshow or montage, you create a living album filled with emotion and fun.

Video slideshows or montages are a fun way to bring photos and videos together to create a compelling and emotional story. When you add music or oral narratives or both, the result is a living album filled with movement and sound that triggers your senses.

Slideshows are a great option for family gatherings, special events, and celebrations. And they can be a fun option to enjoy on family movie night. Popcorn, PJ’s and precious family memories, can it get any better than that?

There are online solutions that make it easy for you to create slideshows by uploading photos and video clips. Some online services offer royalty free music and templates that make it simple for you to render a studio quality production in a few clicks. If you prefer a hands-on approach, iMovie (Mac) or MovieMaker (PC) may work for you, or you can invest in software solutions that come with more tools, effects, and support.

Tips for Video Slideshow Success

The shorter, the better! Attention spans aren’t what they used to be, so keep your slideshow to less than 10 minutes or even shorter depending on the event.
Use a combination of short videos clips (10-15 seconds long) and a variety of still photos to create movement.
Keep the photos moving along at a quick pace. The difference between 10 seconds a photo and 5 seconds, is huge. Stick to 5 seconds per image or less depending on the music.
Music can make or break your video! Music should match the tone and theme of your photos. Choose royalty free music especially if you plan to share your completed slideshow online.
Add an oral narrative. Record Grandpa narrating the story of his mom and dad and layer this audio with the photos and background music. Please pass the kleenex!
Don’t go crazy with transitions. Keep it straightforward and consistent for the best viewing pleasure. The Ken Burns effect is still a classic and dramatic way to view slideshows.
Add your completed slideshow to your digital photo hub and back it up.

Pass the popcorn!

We also invite you to visit our sister blog The Photo Organizers for more tips and in-depth knowledge from some of the top photo organizing industry professionals. To find a photo organizer near you, visit the Association of Personal Photo Organizers.

Jan 10 2018

Save Your Photos: Convert Your Home Movies

Time is wreaking havoc on the audio and video quality of your home movies. It’s time to convert them if you haven’t already done so.

Let’s talk about your home movie collection. Remember that clunky VCR camera that helped you capture your baby’s first steps? Do you have memories of watching grandpa’s home movies with the family projector? When was the last time you were able to enjoy these memorable glimpses into the past?

Your Memories Are Fading

It’s time to do something about the rest of your memory collection trapped on film or magnetic tapes. These treasures are particularly delicate and need your attention soon. Magnetic tapes (VCR) have a shorter lifespan than film (grandpa’s home movies) and begin to deteriorate after ten years. But film has its problems too. If you smell vinegar, or your film has white or green chalky particles, then you need to act fast and work with a professional conversion service.

What to look for in a Home Movie Conversion service

Investigate how the work is done and who is doing it. Transfer services are abundant, and many of them use primitive equipment with minimally trained staff or film handlers. Many of these services use a modified projector with a video camera in it which tapes the image. They often don’t have the tools to improve the picture and can damage the film, and sometimes your film is sent out of the country.

Look for transfer services that use a sprocket less, capstan system designed specifically for scanning. This is the same type of equipment used by the Film and TV industry. This kind of equipment has tools that offer color correction, dirt and scratch concealment, high resolution and more. You’ll pay more for high-end conversion, but it’s worth it.

Ask your provider about the quality of their output. What is the highest resolution they can provide? Your goal is to have a high-resolution original as your master copy that will remain in your hub. You will edit and use derivatives to transfer to DVD or stream online (YouTube or Vimeo). If your provider only offers transfer to DVD or streaming to an online account, find another vendor. These files are highly compressed.

Once your home movies are converted, rename the files and store in your digital photo hub in their corresponding folder.

Don’t Forget Your Digital Photo Hub

Now let’s circle back to when we encouraged you to choose a digital photo hub that has a large capacity and stored locally on your computer or external hard drive. Your entire memory collection, which now contains high res images and high res videos, needs a ton of space! As your collection grows, so does your space requirement. Your locally stored hub should be easy to duplicate (copy to an external drive) and backup (manually or automatically) and is readily available at all times (doesn’t depend on an internet connection).

It’s time to move on to the fun part! Let’s start sharing and enjoying your precious memories.

Sep 15 2016

Save Your Film and Videos Too!

Don’t forget to preserver your family’s home movies and videos too, says Vanessa Boucher of EverPresent Online.

We love reading through all the great advice on this blog and on the APPO blog about saving your photos. However, we think video tapes deserve just as much attention. Oftentimes the footage captured on video is every bit as sentimental and important as that which is captured in photo form. Much of the advice about preserving and organizing photos is applicable to video as well, but there are a few nuances when dealing with film reels and video tapes.

Digitize Your Videos and Film Reels

It’s much easier to share digital videos with loved friends and family.

Your old home movies are filled with special moments (see a sample of one of our favorite, cherished videos here). From the laughter of a child, to footage of wedding vows, to someone’s first steps or first words captured on tape or film, videos can be just as special as old family photos or school portraits, and they merit just as much emphasis when it comes to preserving and sharing with loved ones.

Old videos are much harder to share than photos because they require additional equipment. VCRs are breaking down and getting harder to find, camcorders require charging clunky batteries and hardly anyone has a film reel projector anymore. The best option for sharing home movies is to preserve them in a digital format that can be easily shared with friends and family.

Both videotapes and film reels can be digitized into files whose quality is equivalent to the original formats. Once digital, there are many cloud platforms that make it easy to share almost instantly once your videos are digital: Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, iCloud and Youtube are just some of the many options available.

Don't let your family videos fade away. Time to save them too! #saveyourphotos Click To Tweet

Consolidate and Backup Your Videos

Consolidate all of your digital videos in one place. Create a backup of your files for extra security.

Once all of your videos are digital, the best thing to do is get them all into one place, alongside your videos that were captured digitally. Typically there are a few different devices with that may have videos: computers, phones, tablets and cameras are a good place to start. Consolidating videos to a single place on a computer or external hard drive will make it easier to manage your video collection going forward. Organization of videos can be done much the same way as photos. Here is a great post about organizing printed photos . All of the information on sorting and prioritizing can be applied to your video collection as well.

Once you have everything in one place, and groomed to your liking, creating a high quality backup of the videos should be a priority. For best practices, keep a copy off-site, such as on a hard drive in a safety deposit box or uploaded to the cloud long term.

Proper Video Storage is Key

Nothing is wrong with keeping your old tapes and film reels, but make sure they are stored properly.

*This is an example of POORLY stored film reels. The reels have gotten rusty and the film itself is moldy.*

Videotapes and film reels can carry sentimental value in a way that digital files can’t quite capture. Maybe there are special labels written on each tape by a relative or maybe you want to keep your dad’s film collection to pass along to your kids one day. Whatever the reason for hanging on to these original materials, it’s important to do so properly.

Storing your film reels and tapes somewhere cool and dry should be the biggest priority. Nothing will deteriorate these formats faster than water, which can cause mold and irreparable damage to both videotapes and film reels that will affect the quality of the playback image. Pack your family memories in watertight bins and make sure to pack them tightly. If the items are packed too loosely, they can shift around and the hard plastic video cartridges can crack or break. Keep in mind that even when stored properly, the years can take their toll on your videotapes and film reels. The best way to preserve them is to keep a digital copy alongside the originals.

Vanessa Boucher has personally helped over 500 families share memories and history through unique projects as a consultant at EverPresent, the nation’s leading photo organizing company. A graphic/web designer and crafting enthusiast, Vanessa’s is one of the thought leaders behind EverPresent’s innovative website and blog, where she shares best practices and tips on topics ranging from digitizing irreplaceable memorabilia to creating stunning photo books.