The digital age of photos has definitely made our life easier and cheaper, no more bad pictures. Well, at least you can delete them and try again, and no more running to the store to develop every single photo whether you want it or not. I don't know how many times I wasted money on blurry pictures. Ugh! So frustrating! I know for a fact that I wouldn't have nearly as many photos of my daughter if we still lived in 35mm times. That is another great thing about digital photos, you can take all the pictures you please. It is nothing for me to take 200 or 300+ pictures when we go on vacation. I would have been lucky to take a couple of film rolls with me back in the 90s.
The bad thing about digital photos is often times the picture gets taken and pushed off onto a disk or your computer never to be looked at again. The unseen and unappreciated photos. As much as I love taking pictures of my daughter I found that I had very little hard copy photos developed.
My biggest problem was that I could never find what I wanted when I wanted it. I could easily get tons of hard copies developed for super cheap but finding the ones I wanted was a pain and required searching through folder after folder of digital pictures.
Enough was enough it was time to get down to the nitty gritty and get those bad boys under control.
Here are a few steps I used and that you can use as well to get your digital prints organized.
Step 1: Gather
Get all of your images in one master folder. Upload all your images off your memory cards, phones, etc. If you have old photos that you would like to make digital copies (this is a great idea) then scan those in as well.
Step 2: Organize
Start creating sub-folders and separating your images. You can create sub-folders however you choose but it's probably better not to be too specific. Some examples of mine would be Virginia Vacation 2010, Christmas 2011, Summer 2011, etc). I wouldn't just name a folder after my daughter because that would be too broad. Pictures will be easier to find when you can locate a specific date in time or vacation. As you add photos be sure to organize them right away. This will keep you from having to go back and redo step 2.
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Step 3: Burn
After you have gotten all of your folders created and neatly organized to your liking start burning copies to disk. A disk will only hold so much space so I would suggest burning photos by dates. This will allow you to label your disk accordingly and for you to easily access the disk you need at a later time. Make a note where you stopped at burning photos so that you can pick up with those you haven't burned. Do this at least monthly for any new photos you add to your library. This will also depend on how many photos you take. If you take a lot you might want to burn them more often or not as many you might can wait longer about burning them.
Step 4: Back Up
Files on your computer and burned disks are never enough when you are talking about irreplaceable photos. You definitely want to make a separate copy of your master library onto another external hard drive. The external hard drive I use is called a Click Free. What I love about the click free hard drives is that they are automatic. If you want me to do something it better be easy. Ha! At least when it comes to backing up things on my computer. This hard drive automatically backs up any new photos/docs/etc throughout the day. Easy Peasy!
Step 5: Extra Protection
Recently I seen a friend of mine loose precious baby pictures of her daughter and son because of water damage. This can happen to hard copies, computers can crash, and disks can get scratched or broken, to prevent losing your most important and significant photos upload them to the web. There are lots of free online storage services available. Check out drop box, shutterfly, snapfish or even just uploading your favorites to facebook. This doesn't mean upload every single photo you own but definitely the ones you would be devastated if you lost.
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I know it sounds like a lot to do. I'm not going to lie, it will take a while but you will feel better about finding your photos and protecting your photos in the long run.
Go organize!
Do you have your photos neatly organized and backed up?
