Photographers: How do YOU store and print photos.and do what you do

I'm just getting into photography and bought a Nikon D5100. I'm looking at buying Photoshop Elements now. Can this program only be downloaded to 1 computer? I have one old desktop and a cheap laptop with no printer. Should I buy a 1TB external hard drive or just use a memory stick? I also need an inexpensive way to print photos. Can I plug an external hard drive into a photo kiosk at Walgreen's or CVS? What is generally the best way to store original and edited photos and what's the best and cheapest way to get prints?

Q: "Can this program only be downloaded to 1 computer?"
A: Yes, legally.

Q: "Should I buy a 1TB external hard drive or just use a memory stick?"
A: Use a stick for transporting it from one place to another. 64GB or 32GB is plenty. But, your camera uses a memory card. IF that is 64GB, stick with that. You can just purchase a card reader or just use the usb cable for your camera to transfer photos. IF you are going to take many many many photos at a time as in 1000+, I would buy an external drive also.

Q: "Can I plug an external hard drive into a photo kiosk at Walgreen's or CVS? What is generally the best way to store original and edited photos and what's the best and cheapest way to get prints?"

A: Yes and no. They will read the card from your camera. If you have a fast internet connection, you can also go to Walgreens.com, look for the photo section, create an account, and upload photos to the site. That way, you can store photos on their site, look at it anywhere you have internet, and also print them to the store or for delivery. Costco is also a cheaper place for photo enlargements. Ordering online is the cheapest, especially if you can find a coupon code. Snapfish, Walgreens, CVS, Coscto all have websites and offer similar quality.

All Adobe software allows you to install onto two computers.

The safest way to store your images is on hard drives, preferably two. Memory cards and memory sticks are not designed for long term storage and CD/DVD WILL fail at some point and be unreadable. Hard drives are cheap at the moment.

Hard drives can fail too, that's why I said to store on two. The ultimate storage is a Raid array of hard drives, if a hard drives fails, replace it and the new drive will update itself from the other hard drives in the array, a Raid array will also speed up your computer. Having said that I have only had two hard drives fail in over 30 years of using them. Hard drives really hang onto data, in fact the only way you can be sure to erase sensitive data is to physically smash the discs

Sounds like you will have to update/replace your computers at some point especially if you want to shoot and edit video. A 64bit system is becoming the norm these days which needs a 64bit processor and motherboard and very fast every thing else.

For printing the best price/quality is usually from the print houses the trade uses, for the most part those found on the High Street or in a Mall are not the best. Find one local to you and deal face to face. You will usually find them on Industrial or Trading Estates. I use a memory stick to give them the images I want printed. Quantity will always bring the price per print down.

It can be downloaded to 2 computers - but ensure your computers are up to spec to run it. Nothing worse than having to sit there whilst it tries to dodge/burn or worst still, just freezes.

Use an external hard drive (preferably two). Memory sticks are only of use for transferring images from one machine to another.

You can print photos off using a CD, USB memory stick or the camera's SD card.

I store my images in folders based on genre (Landscape, Portrait etc) and then subdivided into particular shoots/projects.

I shoot in raw & store the edits in a separate folder within each project.

Camera SD cards should NOT be used for any long term storage - you want to get into a 'digital workflow' routine. After each day's shooting you should download images to computer, check all ok then make your backup copies. Then put the card back in the camera & reformat it - this keeps the file structure table tidy & minimises the risk of card failure.

Adobe - Can be installed on 2 computers
Files - Save them in 3 locations (main location, on-site backup generally external hard drive, and off-site backup).
Printing - If walking in-store, a flash drive works. You can also order online. If you want to step-up the quality of your prints, try http://www.ThePhotoTouch.com/. They are a pro lab and have great customer service.