Oooh, first, this post was post number… 1700!
Let’s let that sink in for a minute. That’s a lot of talking from me; let’s hear from you too please.
Photos are one of those things that can quickly overwhelm you if you don’t have a system. Before you know it, you have thousands of photos on your computer and no idea where to start.
If this is you, make one folder titled Before _____ (today’s date) and start working backwards, just 15 minutes a day. Once you start, the momentum will easily carry you forward.
Then, from now onwards, do the following steps and you’ll never be behind again.
1. Download after every major photo-taking session
It’s far easier to sort through 50 rather than 500 photos. However, if you take photos daily, you might want to do this once a week.
2. Name the folder
I name my folders 201601 Cape Town and 20160508 Sunday pics 20-52, and so on. Because of this blog, I also have folders called OQ bullet journal, OQ wallet, OQ house, etc.
It is easy to do a search and find what you’re looking for later if you describe the photos first.
3. Delete the duds immediately
Scroll through each photo and delete any blurry, non-flattering or “iffy” photos immediately.
When you postpone making decisions, it leads to clutter.
4. Select the photos you want to print
Make a new folder and call it TO PRINT. When you come across GORGEOUS photos, copy them to this separate folder. Note I said COPY – you don’t want to accidentally delete the good ones. I only print the GORGEOUS photos, which means I don’t even print 10% of the photos I take.
At least once a month – every two months, when you run errands, copy the photos from your TO PRINT folder onto a flash drive and drop it off at your nearest photo centre. I’ve never used an online photo service service but there is one I want to try. I’ll let you know if it works out well 🙂
This works really well for me as the amounts of money I have to spend is not much because I’m printing regularly and I’m also not overwhelmed sorting out hundreds of photos for my albums.
5. Compress and crop photos
If you want to send some photos to friends and family, it is good manners to compress them first before emailing them so people don’t use all their data downloading your 6 MB pics 😉 I use Picasa and it automatically compresses them (you can adjust to exactly how much you want them compressed).
Bonus for bloggers
Take a few minutes to compress and crop any photos you intend to blog. If you want to really save time, you could then upload the photos to your blog and save the drafts. Then all you have to do is type the text and publish! This explains why I have so many items in drafts!
6. Back up your photos regularly
I do a back-up every month (or sooner if I feel the computer slowing down).
You definitely don’t want to lose any precious memories so back up regularly.
Do you have a good system for organising your photos?
How often do you organise your digital phoeo files?
If you print photos, do you get your prints in person or do you order online?
Oh my goodness, that is a lot of posts. This one is well timed though, I need to sort out my dropbox photos, as I’m losing space.
I think I have a years worth of photos to sort out. Our PC that we use to store photos on is connected to our TV. I once had this idea that it would great to be able to see our photos on the big screen TV and it really is beautiful to view it this way. But it such a mission to organise because we have a smart remote for this TV and to aim the remote at the TV and drag the photos into another folder and label them etc takes sweet forever. I usually give up after the first photo, that is how tedious it is. How do you back up your photos if you don’t mind me asking? On a Hard Drive? Our one hard drive broke and that is why I am concerned now.