Thanks to digital photography, it costs virtually nothing to shoot innumerable pictures of a beautiful autumn day, birthday party, or vacation. The result is that many of us have hundreds or thousands of photos crowding our memory cards or our computer hard drives — and we're not necessarily doing what we need to do to enjoy them to the fullest, or save them for posterity.

In this article, we're going to discuss getting archive-grade prints, other methods of enjoying photos in the here and now, and some ways to make sure those files are preserved for future enjoyment.

Photo prints that will last

There's no way to guarantee that your photo prints will last for decades, much less centuries. Even some of the best prints made by professional labs fade eventually. The upside to digital photos is that the digital files themselves don't fade over time — you can always make new prints. But most of us would rather make an excellent print that can last between five and fifty years than make a new print every few months. And the good news is that it's not hard to get reasonable quality prints that will last for years — especially if you take care of them after they're printed. Here are our tips:

When using an ink jet printer:

• use the highest-quality photo paper compatible with your printer; archival-quality "lightfast" paper is ideal
• if possible, use pigment-based print ink, not dye-based
• let ink jet prints dry for as long as possible before touching them; waiting 12 hours is a good idea

When using a lab or photo service:

• look for a lab that uses high-end professional printers, not a customer-operated kiosk, to print your photos
• try more than one lab until you get the results you want; the service on digital prints can vary greatly

No matter how your photos are printed:

• always put prints behind glass or plastic to better protect them from moisture, chemicals, and light
• avoid placing photos in direct sunlight, even if they're framed

Not all ink jet printers are compatible with archival-grade paper, and only the most high-end printers use pigment-based inks. However, by printing on the best paper available for use with your printer, and treating those prints with care, you'll get a longer life out of pictures printed with dye-based ink than you otherwise would.

Top-quality printers, like Canon's Pro series, produce finer, longer-lasting photo prints than those created with budget ink jet printers.

You may have noticed that we don't discuss how to get archival photo prints out of a dye-sublimation printer; that's because these printers are prized mainly for portability, bright colors, and continuous tone. Their prints fade about as fast as prints from a non-archival ink jet printer. You can learn more about ink jet and dye-sublimation printers in our article on choosing a digital photo printer.

New ways to enjoy your photos

One of the nice things about digital photos is that you're not limited to photo prints when it comes to enjoying the pictures you take. Here are some of the things you can do:

• View photos on your computer. On the most basic level, you can use a digital photo as a background on your computer's desktop. You can also set up a photo slideshow as a screen saver. These are both quite easy to do on a PC or Mac.

Many MP3 players, like Apple's iPod® touch, can store and display your digital photos.

• Enjoy photos on an MP3 player. Many of today's MP3 players, including the latest iPod, iPod nano, and iPod touch models, can store and display photos. In order to load them on the player, you may need to add them to your player's software and let that software convert them to the appropriate format. Some players can then be connected to a TV for large-scale playback of the stored images.

Digital photo frames are an increasingly popular way to enjoy digital pictures.

• Use a digital photo frame. There are more and more digital photo frames out there for folks who want to be able to see a range of their favorite digital photos, rather than a single photo print. These frames vary in price, style, size, and screen resolution, but they have one thing in common — they use built-in memory or a memory card to store digital photos, which they then play back as a slideshow. Some can play short clips of video. Others even have Internet connectivity, so you can update them remotely. Digital photo frames are great gifts for family members who don't have computers or Internet connections, but who'd like to have access to current family digital photos.
• View photos on your TV. You may also be able to use a wired or wireless network in your home to send digital photos from a computer to your home entertainment system, so you can watch slideshows of your photos on a TV. To do this, most folks use a computer or Media Center PC to store photos and send them to a compatible device connected to your TV. You may also be able to take advantage of the multimedia capabilities of a gaming system to either store photos or grab them from a computer. You can get more tips on this approach in our article on whole-house video.