VAIL, Colorado — With the start of a new year, I recently found myself sifting through the numerous digital photos I took last year. While it's difficult to pick out my favorite pictures from the year, it's not so hard to decide what to do with them.

In this week's Tech Bytes, I'm going to go over two great ways to print out your favorite photos and showcase them for years to come.

Photo books

When I was growing up, I loved making scrapbooks from my 35mm photos. From picking out the background paper to arranging and gluing the photos in place, it was a great way to kill some time and preserve memories in a neat way. While I don't quite have the patience and free time anymore to hand-build a scrapbook, I have found a pretty great alternative in digital photo books.

Digital photo books are offered by a number of online vendors and allow you to design a custom photo book right from the comfort of your home. Many are professional quality and let you layout the book as you please, with many having extras such as leather covers and book jackets to add a nice finishing touch.

One of the companies that I use to create photo books is MyPublisher.com. They have an easy-to-use software interface that downloads to your computer, and then allows you to quickly drag and drop your photos into place to create your personalized book. They have three different book sizes available — two in hardcover and one soft cover — and the books start at $12.95 and 20 pages. With the MyPublisher software you can build a book in minutes and still customize each page with different backgrounds, captions and number of photos per page.

The great thing about the MyPublisher software is that it also has a chat function built right in, so if you get stuck with a question, you can click on the chat logo and have immediate access to a help specialist. For first-time customers they also have a buy-one, get-one deal, so you get a free, extra copy of your book you can give as a gift or keep as a spare.

Photo posters

Back in college, I worked in a computer lab where I had access to a large-format poster printer, and ever since then I've been hooked on making poster-sized enlargements of my favorite photo scenes to hang around my house.

These days, I use Fotki.com to make my enlargements. Fotki is similar to many photo-sharing sites like Flikr and PhotoBucket as it allows you to upload your photos to a free, online storage account and then share them with others online.

What sets Fotki apart though, in my opinion, is their budget-friendly printing prices. With Fotki, you can have a two-by-three foot poster created from a digital photo (assuming it is a high-enough resolution to look OK at that size) for less than $12. And their four-by-six prints are only $.09 each.

To use Fotki, simply create a free account, upload the photos you want to share and print, and then click the order photo button for each print you want. Once you have them all selected, click on the shopping cart icon to select the size of each photo and place your order. With the money you save on printing, you'll be able to splurge on a nice frame to put it in.

Jessie Williams is the owner of Second October Media, www.secondoctober.com, a Web development and graphic design firm in Edwards. Have a tech question you'd like answered? E-mail her at info@secondoctober.com.