I know if you’re like me, you probably have a gazillion digital photos on your computer. Maybe they’re in different folders. Maybe you even took the time to name some of them (or maybe they’re all still named DSCN_9739503). For whatever place you’re at, I promise I won’t tell you to print them out and arrange them into scrapbooks. That would require too much effort, and this is about organizing digital photos the easy way.
* First of all, choose software to help you. There are a lot of nice choices. Picasa is a good free option, and I like to use iPhoto. Both let you do basic editing and organizing all in one.
* Decide how you want to sort your photos. I like chronological order, so I group the photos into months, and if there is a special event with a lot of photos, I make a group for that too.
* Give each photo a descriptive label, and use the same format each time. I like to use the date and then the name of the person or event, followed by the sequence number. This is the 11th photo of Lane taken on May 10, 2008, so it is named 20080510 - Lane 11.
Having the date written in the label helps me to find and identify photos more quickly. When I write the date I use the format YYYYMMDD, because even when the computer sorts the photos alphabetically, they will stay in chronological order.
* Now this is a very important part: The best tool for organizing your digital photos is the delete button.
Yes people, I said it, you need to delete some photos. When I’m taking pictures I usually take a few shots to make sure I get it right, because whenever you take pictures of a running kid with a point-and-shoot camera, you’re really just hoping for the best. So I take a few with the idea that some of them will be clear and some won’t be, and possibly a few will turn out to be pretty good. Go through your photos really quickly and delete the obvious ones — the ones that are too blurry to see, or the practice shots, or the ones that you just don’t like.
If you have photos that look similar, pick your favorites, the ones that make you smile or stir your heart, and feel free to delete the others. It’s not about conserving memory on your computer, it’s about creating a nice collection to look at later. Even if all of them turned out pretty good, it is more enjoyable to look at your favorite 25 photos of an event, rather than 100 photos that look the same. Just like when you declutter your stuff, if you get rid of the extras photos, the ones you keep become more special. Once you have done this, you’ll enjoy looking through the pictures as a slideshow on your computer, and you won’t feel as guilty about not printing them out or putting them into albums.
* Back them up! If you have a lot of photos, get a backup drive so you can copy all of them to the drive easily, or you can copy them to discs. Set a reminder on your calendar so you’ll remember to do it.
Your photos are special! Don’t let them get lost in a mystery folder on your computer. Spend a little time to organize them, so you can enjoy them more.
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September 1, 2008 at 5:02 am
Pingback from Simple Ways to Store Photos | simple mom
May 20, 2008 at 2:03 pm
avlor
Thank you for not guilting us into printing photos. I have so much old photo clutter from the days I used film.
I’ve been trying to label/name my photos when I download them, so I don’t have to remember to go back and do it.
In addition to an external drive for backup, I also use an online backup service for my several years of photos. (I don’t backup sensitive things like finances this way.) It’s automatic every day and I don’t have to remember to do it.
May 20, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Toblerone @ Simple Mom
Love this:
“It’s not about conserving memory on your computer, it’s about creating a nice collection to look at later. Even if all of them turned out pretty good, it is more enjoyable to look at your favorite 25 photos of an event, rather than 100 photos that look the same.”
I’m very much in agreement with you. Now if you just had some tips on how to convince my husband that it’s not a cardinal sin to delete the blurry ones, I’d be set! He’s a hoarder, I’m a tosser.
May 20, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Move To Portugal
Excellent idea… she says as she goes off to organise and rename her photo’s
May 20, 2008 at 7:44 pm
darkcoffee
Just got done with a big 2007 backup and was thinking about this. Love your system. It took me, like, 10 years to realize that doing it by years backward would keep them in order:-) Mine is basically the same. You hit on the exact reason deleting is important, and, for me, best to do on the initial download as a “just do it” task. I don’t re-label the photos themselves for a next step, however, but put them into chronological folders by month and by year. A folder might be “2007 05 29 kids playing in Oklahoma,” etc. And then organize those within year folders.
And for this year before new additions go to “final” storage, I’m going to try a new idea: to fill up a “bucket” folder with photos that haven’t been backed up to disk. When the bucket folder reaches DVD storage size, I’ll back them up as 2008 progresses, instead of my usual procrastinating “yearly DVD back up.” (I immediately back them up on a exterior drive when downloading them from the camera, of course — another “just do it” task.)
May 21, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Lauren
Great post! I just downloaded Picasa a couple of weeks ago. I still haven’t gotten around to organizing all of my pictures on it yet. Baby steps, I suppose.
May 21, 2008 at 9:35 pm
smallnotebook
Great suggestions everyone. I really have to take it in baby steps when I organize my photos, and just try to focus on a month or week at a time. Ideally, I’d like to do it when I download the photos from my camera, but sometimes life gets in the way. I try to do it quickly and not think too hard, because it’s easy to get caught up in looking at the photos, but not actually doing anything.
May 21, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Karen @ Simply A Musing Blog
I love, love, love Picasa…I also use the web album for easy transferring from one pc to another. I can upload from my album at home and then log in at my mom’s house and download them for her. Faster than sending 40-50 photos via email.
Your way of labeling is brilliant. How do I go back and figure that out on all my old pics, though?
May 21, 2008 at 11:15 pm
smallnotebook
Picasa lets you rename groups of photos right? I’ve gone back to rename old photos, and in that case it’s best to just keep it simple. Do a month at a time, and just name them something like 200805 - May ##. Or even easier, don’t worry about it and just do future photos.
That is a great way to share photos, Karen.
May 22, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Megan@SortaCrunchy
Oh, love Karen’s idea, too!
This is so helpful, Rachel. I had never thought of labeling them with the date in that format. PERFECT. Love it.
July 30, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Eden
Backing up to an external drive is good, but you really need online storage too. I use JungleDisk. It’s fairly easy to set up and I have it scheduled to automatically back up every night (you can specify precisely what to back up).
It’s no fun to think about, but something like a fire or theft at home would destroy all the hard drives you have which is why the online backup is so important.
September 1, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Claire
Big gulps!! I am so not good at deleting but after reading your and Simplemom’s photo storing tips, I know it has to be done. Now I just have to do it. That’s definitely the hard part for me.