GrandpaTellMe.com makes sharing photos, organizing photo albums, and creating slideshows easy and fun.  This guide provides How-To information and Tips for some of the photo-sharing capabilities of GrandpaTellMe.com, but the best teacher is experience.  With a free site from GrandpaTellMe.com your experience sharing photographs can be inexpensive and fun!

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Sharing Photographs and Images

Sharing photographs or almost any kind of image with GrandpaTellMe.com is almost as easy as putting your photos in a shoe-box for storage, and a lot easier than organizing a traditional family photo-album.  To be fair, there are a couple of steps you can take to share your photos and your images, but there is really only one simple step that is required.

Here is what you do:

1. Add photos and images you want to share to your site. (the one required step)

2. Add Titles and Descriptions to your photos (optional)

3. Categorize your photos (optional)

4. Invite people to join your site (optional - the sharing part)

Adding photos and images you want to share (the one required step)

To add photos or images that you want to share to the site follow these simple steps:

1. From the main menu click on "Photos".

2. From the Photos Sub-menu, click on "add photos"

3. Use the "Browse" buttons on the "Add Photos" page to select your photos and images to share.

4. When you have selected the photos you want to add, click on the "Upload Photos" button to send them to the site.

You don't need to worry about format, resolution or other technical details to share photos using GrandpaTellMe.com.  Just add the photos, and we will do the rest.  As soon as they are transmitted to the site, your photographs and images will immediately be available for viewing by the other members of your site.  Notices of newly posted photos will automatically be sent out to each member of the site and the sharing will begin!

Adding Titles and Descriptions to your photos (optional)

"A picture is worth a thousands words", but sometimes a photograph could use some explanation.  Maybe a story needs to be told, some background needs to be provided, or an explanation of circumstances is in order to make the sharing of your photos more meaningful.  Whatever the reason, with GrandpaTellMe.com it is easy to do.  Here are the steps:

NOTE: Unless you are the site owner, you can only change the title / description of photos that you have added to the site.

1. Use the "Photos" page to select a photo that you want to give a title and/or description to.

2. Click on the thumbnail version of your photo to display the photo details page.

3. From the photo details page, click on the "Edit" link.
   NOTE: unless you are the site owner the edit link is only available on photos that you have uploaded.

4. On the "Edit Photo" page, enter a title and a description of your photo, then click on the "Update Photo" button to save your changes.

Adding titles and descriptions to your photos is optional, but it is easy to do and it makes the photos you share more interesting to the family and friends you are sharing with.

Categorizing your photos (optional)

As you add photos to share with family and friends, you might want to group them by family, by event, by subject or any other way you prefer.  Categorizing your photos is optional but easy and it can make the sharing of your photos even better!  There are two reasons for categorizing your photos.  First, you can browse photos by category to limit the number of pages to search through for a particular photo.  Second, You can easily view all of the photos in a category as a slide show.  As always GrandpaTellMe.com makes it easy to do.  Here are the steps:

NOTE: Unless you are the site owner, you can only change the category of photos that you add to the site.

1. Use the "Photos" page to select a photo that you want to categorize.

2. Click on the thumbnail version of your photo to display the photo details page.

3. From the photo details page, click on the "Edit" link.
   NOTE: unless you are the site owner the edit link is only available on photos that you have uploaded.

4. On the "Edit Photo" page, select an existing category for your photo, or if you don't see what you want on the list of existing categories, enter a new category for your photo.  When you are done click on the "Update Photo" button to save your changes.

Categorizing your photos is optional, but it is easy to do and it makes the photos easier to find and more fun to view for the family and friends you are sharing with.

Inviting People to Join your Site (optional, but this is the sharing part)

After creating your site and adding photographs and images that you want to share, you are ready to send out invitations to friends, grandparents, grandchildren, cousins, aunts, uncles - in short anyone you would like to share your photos with.  As always GrandpaTellMe.com makes it easy to do.  Here are the steps:

1. From the main menu, click on "Members".

2. From the Members Sub-menu, click on "Add Members"

3. Enter the names and email addresses of the people you want to share with.

4. If you wish, type up a personal message to include with each invitation.

5. When you are done, click on the "Send Invitations" button to get the job done.

You can invite as many people as you like to join your site and share photos, history, files, calendar information and more.  GrandpaTellMe.com makes it fun and easy to do!

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Organizing Photo Albums

Coming in February, 2006 - GrandpaTellMe.com announces a new easy to use photo album organizer!  Organizing and sharing your photos will be even easier with drag-n-drop controls and audio captions.  Record your voice, or the voice of a treasured relative or friend, and make it all part of your album.  Group and organize your photos using creative layouts, create beautiful slideshows and much more.

At GrandpaTellMe.com things just keep getting better.

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Creating Slideshows

When you are sharing your photos with family and friends, there is just something about a slideshow that makes it a little better.  As always GrandpaTellMe.com makes it easy to do.  Here are the steps:

1. Add the photos you want to share with your friends or family to your site (see instructions above).

2. From the main menu click on "Photos".

3. Select the Category of photos you want to view (use the category drop-down selection tool).

4. From the Photos submenu click on "Slide Show".

This will start a slide show using all of the photos in the selected category (or all photos if no category is selected).

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Tips and Tricks

At GrandpaTellMe.com our goal is to make it easy and fun for people to record and share history.  Sharing photographs and images is an important part of our history.  Here are some tips and tricks to help make it more effective.

1. Have a contest.  Pick a theme, establish a deadline that isn't too far away and offer a small prize for the winning entry (tip - announce the contest in the "News" section).  A small prize will keep it fun without getting too competitive.  If possible, share a sample photo yourself to show what you are looking for and set up a photo category specifically for the contest (see "Categorizing your photos" above).

   For Example: A theme might be "Crossing the Generational Divide", and a sample photo might show a Grandparent interacting with a Grandchild in a fun or humorous way.

2. Request photos on a particular subject.  We have found that sometimes all you have to do is ask.  Many people are shy about sharing photos or images.  They might think others won't appreciate them or that they hold little value.  Sometimes expressing an interest and asking is all it takes to uncover precious memories.

   For example:  After hearing news of a Grandson's successful performance in a High School Swim Meet, a Grandfather offered congratulations and mentioned that in fact he had taken a medal in the same event when he was 10 years old.  Nobody in the family knew about the medal or Grandfather's swimming prowess, but after expressing interest pictures of the medal where shared with the family and the event was properly recorded.

   There is a special bond when grandchildren ask grandparents to share memories.  You will find that usually they want to share, but sometimes you have to ask.

3. Share your photos.  One of the best ways to receive photos is to share some of your own.

   For example:  A site was recently set up on GrandpaTellMe.com for a large extended family that had a well documented history.  Many photos and written histories were available from records that had been kept by the founding parents of the family and copies were well distributed among family members.  When the process of bringing these records online began, it started with scanning and sharing the well known family photos.  However, as members joined and saw the family photos they started to dig out other photos to share that were not well known and a treasure began to accumulate on line.  The photos that had not been copied were now being made available online, while the originals were still safe with the owners.

   Start by sharing photos you have.  When other members see them they will be prompted to share their own photographs to add to the record.

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