One of the enduring frustrations of being a technology enthusiast is that the broad claims made on stage during industry events are rarely matched by reality. Microsoft and Google are both guilty of this.

Google showed off a number of new features coming to Google Photos. Key among them is a simpler, more proactive way to share photos with others.

Those seeking to bring their old photo collections into the digital age face numerous challenges. Here are a few thoughts about this process.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 15 is now available in the Windows Store for just $60. But you can find an even better deal elsewhere.

Instagram announced today that it is adding live videos and disappearing photos to its photo-sharing service.

Google Photos has launched a new mobile app calledPhotoScan that will help scan your paper-based photos and upload them to the cloud.

Microsoft has launched a new photo-taking app on iPhone that it says offers big advantages over the stock Apple Camera app. Called Microsoft Pix, this app optimizes focus, color, and exposure automatically on the fly.

Stung by the superior functionality in services like Google Photos, Microsoft has begun to improve OneDrive to follow suit. And one Google Photos-like feature I've started noticing in recent days---automatic photo albums---is just one of a handful of recent OneDrive updates.

This week, Google released an interesting app called Motion Stills ... for iOS. It turns an iPhone's live photos into animated GIFs and short movies that can easily be shared.

For years, I managed digital photos much like digital music, replicating the collection across multiple devices and to the cloud to ensure that our precious memories were never lost. But in a recurring theme, smart phones have changed everything. And it's time to adapt to this change.

Late last week, Google announced the one-year anniversary of its Google Photos service, noting that it has collectively freed up 13.7 petabytes of phone storage by providing free cloud-based storage for our memories. I've been using Google Photos since it was announced, and have found it to be the superior photo service.

Here are some tech tidbits from around the web: an update on the great photo-scanning event of 2016, Windows 95 on the Apple Watch features the world’s most twee Start button, Bing for iOS now lets you search images by taking a photo, and more.

I've spent a lot of time this year decluttering, both physically around the house, and digitally. But there's no task more daunting, perhaps, than scanning and then throwing out decades of paper-based photos.

I've recommended Google Photos since the service first launched last year. And this week, it's gotten even better thanks to a new auto album feature that appears to be replacing a previous feature called stories.

After having tested the improved new version of Google Photos, I can say that I'll be using it myself, and can recommend that you at least check it out.