Picture clean-up...

I have been trying really hard to clean up my photo files lately. I have SO, SO many pictures on my computer that need to be deleted. The problem is that I start looking at pictures and then I can't focus on the ones that need to be deleted...

All I can focus on is all the pictures that never got edited! Never got edited because I was being just WAY too picky and considered them crap. 

I found an entire session of my kids in April of 2009 that I didn't edit one picture from. Not one! I remember coming home from that photo shoot so sad with the results because my kids didn't all look at the camera and smile. So when I started looking through them (2 1/2 years later) I couldn't believe I didn't edit them! They were so cute and helped me remember what my kids looked like at that time. I am sure I didn't like this one because she wasn't smiling...but now I see this picture and remember this look that she gave me so often. Plus there is a stick coming out of her head and I probably didn't know how to edit it out at the time. Now I don't even care about the stick and could easily remove it. But those are the silly things that I used to consider a bad image. 

That is the beautiful thing about having digital images....over two years later I can go back and realize that I actually did capture a beautiful moment that I will be able to look back and treasure always. 

Have you backed up your computer yet? Make sure your images are backed up on a hard drive and also an online backup system as well. I go through Carbonite but may switch to Mozy. Mozy is a local company for me and I love supporting local businesses. Also, they back up external hard drives from what I hear...Carbonite does not. Don't wait until your hard drive crashes to learn the hard way that pictures need to be backed up! :)