Organizing old photos and saving space

The older you get the more likely you are to have shoe boxes full of photos which take a lot of space.

It is probably also difficult to access those photos you happen to be looking for at any given time.

In the past digitizing photos solved the problem. Trouble is that digitizing took a lot of time with an older computer.

Nonetheless, I started digitizing my older shoe boxes using a PC and a printer scanner, the old tried-and-true method.

It did not take very long for me apprehend I would be working at it for months.

I did a search on the internet for a better method and found that a smartphone app might be an alternative. I still had my doubts.

It took me awhile to find anything that would have a chance of working for me. But finally I got to Google's own app.

Tap or click for it.

It was rather confusing to me as to know how to use it. But I persisted.

Using a bright light over a table, you hold the smartphone above the photo laid out below. There appear four mysterious circles.

You tap on one and an arrow appears to move your smartphone in the direction of another one.

When done you tap on a small circle after a brief delay and up comes a perfect likeness of the original.

You can then frame the photo.

After that, you can send the image to Google photos. There are you can do the editing.

Alternative general adjustments such as exposure are available at one tap. You can also adjust brightness and other effects.

Once I caught on to the process I suddenly found I had scanned through a whole box of photos in very short order.

So, another instance in which the smartphone did the job far better than an old computer.

It had only taken me half a day to evaluate all the alternatives and get well into the work of my photos.

During the process I received a phone call from a resident considering whether to replace his old computer. He asked me whether I needed to do so. Not surprisingly I said no, just get a smartphone.