Some of us only receive photos of grandkids once a year — when school photos come out.

Vacation shots our computer-savvy friends have taken sit in our computer unviewed, as do digital photos of our grandchildren.

The reason: We don’t know how to open those files.

No, this isn’t going to be a lesson in how to retrieve those photos yourself. But here’s how you can learn to do it:

Buy a 4mg (pronounced “four meg”) flash drive at any store with an electronics department: Walmart, Radio Shack and so on.

Don’t pay more than $15. If your senior center has a class in computers but hasn’t covered digital photographs, contact the instructor and get step-by-step instructions on how to get the photos out of your computer and into the little flash drive. (This will no doubt involve inserting the flash drive into the appropriate space on your computer, navigating to the folder where the file is and copying it onto the flash drive.)

From there you take the flash drive to a photo store.

They can download those files and create actual photos for you, or with a little help you can do it yourself.

As a pricing example, if you want to print out 4-by-6-inch photos, you can do it for about 30 cents each at the Walmart photo lab kiosk. Or, they’ll help you.

Second best bet is to hire a trustworthy child geek to download those photos for you or put them in a computer directory and show you how to get to them.

First best bet: Tell people you’re fine with handling e-mail, but you can’t view or print the digital photos they send. Ask them to send you actual prints!

Matilda Charles regrets that she cannot personally answer reader questions, but will incorporate them into her column whenever possible. Write to her in care of King Features Weekly Service, P.O. Box 536475, Orlando, FL 32853-6475, or send e-mail to columnreply@gmail.com.

(c) 2011 King Features Synd., Inc.