If you're looking to give your photos a digital makeover, here are five online services that will help you get started on the journey.

From heirlooms and antiques, to hand-me-downs and recipe books, family keepsakes have a surreal, magical ability to take anyone on a nostalgic trip down the memory lane.

But for many of us, there’s nothing quite like opening up a box of old photographs and reminiscing on the old times.

For the last decade or so, digital technology has replaced most forms of traditional film, changing the way we capture and preserve memories that could otherwise be lost or destroyed.

So if you're looking to give your photos a digital makeover, here are five online services that will help you get started on the journey.

1. Flickr

Flickr is a photo sharing and management app designed to easily upload, organise, edit and share your photos from any device, anywhere in the world.

They also have a great intuitive search feature, meaning you can search images by colour or by specific holiday or location.

This is via an image-recognition technology, so you don’t even have to tag or label the photos yourself to make them easy to find.

A free account comes with 1TB (that’s 1,000 GB!) of storage for your images and family videos.

If you have more than a terabyte of memories you want to store, you can always upgrade to their Doublr account, however this is quite costly in comparison at US$499 a year.

Free and Paid

2. Shoe Box

Photo courtesy: Shoebox press kit

ShoeBox is a service that enables unlimited photo backup via desktop, web and mobile apps.

What sets it apart from other photo storage systems is how it displays pictures at random from your stored library to remind you of times past.

Video storage is smaller than that offered by Flickr, so Shoebox is a better choice for those of us who don’t fancy ourselves as an amateur videographer.

You can choose from their free plan which backs up all images at a high quality, or their USD$5 a month plan which allows original quality back up - most useful if you want the option to print your images later on a large scale.

Free and Paid

3. iCloud Photo Library

Photo courtesy: Apple press kit

iCloud Photo Library is a particularly nifty tool for Apple users - part back-up, part snyc and part storage optimiser.

It stores every photo and video you take on your Apple device, keeping them up to date across all devices linked to the same account.

This means not only will you never lose your favourite photos, but you can also easily free up space on your phone or tablet once they safely sync to your desktop computer or laptop.

Photo sharing is a seamless experience, where you can create a shared album and invite friends and family to add their photos and videos when they want.

Plans start at free for 5GB storage, up to $14.99 a month for 1TB of storage.

Free and Paid

4. OneDrive

Photo courtesy: Microsoft press kit

Microsoft's OneDrive is a cloud service for both documents and photos that you can use to access and share your files on PC, Mac, Android and iOS.

Because it’s used for files and photos, its interface is a little more basic than some of the others on this list but what sets it apart is an intriguing search feature. Using ‘machine vision’, it groups your photos into many different categories, be it cities, crowds, food etc.

You can have free storage for up to 5GB of content for free, otherwise $2 a month will get you 50GB.

Free and Paid

5. Dropbox

Photo courtesy: Dropbox press kit

Dropbox is a popular choice for file sharing and storage of any kind.

Like all of the services on our list, your photos and videos can live on the Cloud, and with Dropbox there is the added bonus of compatibility with a number of devices and operating systems.

This includes the Dropbox website, desktop applications from Mac, Windows and Linux, as well as mobile/tablet apps with iOS, Android, Blackberry and Kindle Fire.

Its basic website design is a great choice for first timers as there aren’t too many bells and whistles to complicate your experience.  

You can start off on a free plan which gives you up to 2GB of storage space, otherwise their pro account gives 1TB of space for $13.99 a month.

You can also earn more free storage by encouraging your friends to join.  

Free and Paid

Don’t forget that these services aren’t just useful for new photos, you can also scan old photos to your computer and store on the Cloud. 

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