Fredrick Loc: Former NYC, now San Francisco Bay Area

Thank you for sending out this link. It answered some of my questions.

chikid68 Loc: Tennesse USA

I still use CDs for sending unless they tell me they need a thumb drive and are willing to cover the cost of the drive.
I buy disks in bulk to save money but flash drives can get expensive constantly purchasing new ones and I am not made of money.

crphoto8 Loc: Anaheim, California

I create JPEG albums from post-processed RAW images in LR. The albums are uploaded to Google Photos where they can be shared with people via a link to the album.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

I use photo sharing sites SmugMug and Lightroom to share images with friends and family.

rcarol

Flash drives are still more expensive than CDs or DVDs but the real expense is in the delivery via USP, UPS or whatever.

buckscop Loc: Bucks County PA

With Windows, and when in file explorer, when you grab images and right click email, windows asks you if you want them smaller or not. Large, medium and small byte sizes. Does picking any of these in windows do the same thing? Are any choices here downgrading the image? I usually have so many to send, I lower size, and tell family that if they want a particular one to let me know and I'll send the larger file.

cahale Loc: San Angelo, TX

I gave up on CD's and DVD's a couple of years ago. As stated above, many of the new computers don't have DVD drives (which includes CD), but all have USB. Beside that, you can get so much more on a flash drive.

Scruples Loc: Brooklyn, New York

I too am the resident photographer. When I used film, I would also develop it as was standard and have a CD made. That was a great extra feature I offered. I would use a sharpie marker to write on the CD. People complained that my handwriting was terrible. Then I got "wiser" and used a P-Touch to label the disks. People complained that the label tapes would peel off and sometimes jam the CD drive. Then I found a printer specifically designed to print on disks. Even better since I could print graphics too. The label ribbons became very expensive. One label ribbon would print out 20 disks at a time and need to be replaced. Then people complained that their computer doesn't have a CD drive. I had bought an external CD drive. That too became cumbersome.
Now I transfer the files to a USB Drive. It is much easier since I can get them for $5 each at a local store. Then I label each drive with a tiny label and tape it on to the outside. I could put the photos on a site and then share them via cyberspace.
But I'm a grumpy old coot to lazy to learn new technology! LOL!
Right now it seems better to burn the files onto a USB drive.

robertjsmith

I have never done the statistics, but I have had several thumb drives permanently fail, yet have never had a CD fail.
Also you can also tell the familys they a get an external CD drive for few dollars at several outlets.
Bob Smith

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Always thankful to receive those gifts that require a few dollars to appreciate.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

USB flash drives are available in 5, 10, 20 and 100 packs from many sellers on Amazon. They cost less (each) than a roll of film or a cup of gourmet coffee.

ALL media fail at some point, so make plenty of backups.

Bill P

yet have never had a CD fail.

Ah, we have heard from the unicorn! I have burned a lot of CD's and my experience is that I have had at least a 80% failure rate. They seem to become unusable with time. Many brands of blanks, equal results.

Just were going through some more from about ten years ago that were in storage, and they all went to the trash.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

From 2000 to 2005, I ran a department of a school portrait company that made thousands of CDs per year for school offices and yearbook publishers. They had to work. So we researched and tested various brands and found some with less than 1/2% failure rate. They weren’t the cheapest we could find!

We burned AND VERIFIED every one of them. Bad ones were shredded.

There was a rapid “race to the bottom” price war among CD and DVD makers. Lots of counterfeit discs flooded the market. InfoWorld and a few others tested them. They listed the good ones online.

Bill P

Most of the ones I burned that failed were what might be termed major brand names. Of course they could have been major counterfeit brand...

Hamltnblue Loc: Springfield PA

Thumb drives are nice and cheap. They also hold much more data.
A CD holds 700MB. The smallest current thumb drive is many times larger.

I usually give a thumb drive along with at least one 8 1/2x11 of the best pic using a good quality paper and ink.
That one pic will be a wall hanger and will last generations, while the thumb drive will be lost, thrown out or become unreadable at some point.