Creating a Mother's Day Digital Photo Frame for Technology-Illiterate Moms

A digital photo album is a great gift idea for Mother's Day. However, if your mom is anything like mine, she's not technologically savvy, and lots of buttons send her into fits of apoplexy. This doesn't have to be a problem; there is an easy, fun way to give mom a digital photo album and not give her an anxiety attack at the same time.

The solution? Buy her a digital photo frame. A digital photo frame combines the best aspects of a photo album with the ability to have it available to look at all the time. To make a digital photo album with a digital frame you need the following:

A Digital Frame

There are a huge number of frames to choose from in a wide variety of sizes and styles. If you want an album that Mom can carry in her purse, you might consider the Coby Digital Photo Keychain. It's only about $30 and holds around sixty pictures. Or if you want something that Mom can proudly display on the wall for all to see, a good choice is the Sony 9" Widescreen LCD Digital Photo Frame. It runs about $250 and accepts most memory cards. That's a nice feature as it allows you to make a number of specialized "albums" for Mom to show off.

Photo Scanner

In the event you have non-digital photos, you are going to need to scan them. There are two ways to go as far as scanning your photos. For already developed photos you are going to need a flatbed scanner of some sort. Canon makes several inexpensive flatbeds that make scanning photos easy as can be. What really makes a neat gift is getting a hold of Mom's old photo negatives and slides and scanning them. This requires a task specific scanner. I recommend the Epson Perfection 1670 Photo, Negative and Slide Scanner. It's less than $100 and makes converting negatives and slides a snap. In the event that you can't get a hold of a photo or negative scanner most places that develop photos have the capacity to scan old photos, negatives and slides for you at a reasonable cost.

A Computer

If you're already reading this article, you already have a computer, so you're fine.

Here are the simple steps you'll need to follow to make this digital photo album a reality:

Step 1: Scan all the pictures you'll be needing into your computer

Step 2: Set up folders in your computer to allow you to sort out the photos into whatever categories you desire (anniversaries, weddings, grandchildren, etc).

Step 3: Copy the folders onto a memory device compatible with your digital frame

Step 4: Plug the card into the frame

Step 5: THIS IS IMPORTANT! Explain to your mother how the frame works. If you leave her unattended with it, she'll break it.