We’ve all been there, a heap of digital photos of holidays or loved ones, a lost SD card, a laptop gone bad, or a CD that won’t read. I even went down the path of digital photo frame, but over time the dust built up, I needed the SD card for something else and it rarely got turned on.

Sitting around my house are photos of my sister and I backpacking through Europe, an ex-girlfriend hugging me like we’ll be together forever…. they seem to float around, generate conversation and all of it brings back those amazing memories. So who prints, and what can you print?

In the lead up to the Southern Hemisphere’s largest photographic imaging exhibition, the Digital Life Expo in June, research from the Photo Marketing Association (PMA) found that 37 percent of households in Australia that have digital cameras did not print their photos in 2009 . In response to this, Australian photo printing company Momento, is encouraging Australians to print their photos or risk the loss and leaving it up to memory alone.

Based on data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) there are approximately 8.1 million households in Australia. Of these households, 73 percent have a digital camera. This means that there are currently an estimated 1,378,320 households in Australia that don’t print out their photos.

Research from the PMA study also found that 24 percent of households do not transfer their digital photos to computers at all, putting many households at risk of losing their photos forever.

“People don’t realise how easily you can lose your precious digital photos,” says Libby Jeffery, co-founder of Momento. “I’ve heard a sad story about an older gentleman who scanned all his family photos and saved them on one disc and threw out all the originals… then one day the disc snapped!”

“Rather than having your memories stored away on your computer or on a disc, one of the best ways to preserve your memories is actually to just print them out,” says Jeffery.

Offering a range of premium photo printing solutions including photobooks, diaries, calendars and greeting cards the Momento team appreciate how valuable photos are to everyone.

“We often have customers emailing us and telling us how important their photos are to them and how much they loved the end product. Whether it’s creating a family history book or pulling together photos from your big holiday, photobooks are a great way to keep a record of important events and times in your life,” says Libby.

The research from PMA also found that the primary reason for printing was to send or give the photos as gifts to family.

www.momento.com.au