Challenged by what to do with the 1000s of digital photos stored on various devices or the printed photos living in drawers and shoeboxes around your home? This is a task that is often reserved for “later”. But now is the time to get control of those photos and create a way to preserve them for the future.
Before you start it helps to have a “why.” Why are you organizing your photos? Do you want to create an annual family photo album? A collage of images for a milestone birthday? Preserve pictures for future generations?
Start with baby steps. Commit to doing just the current month’s pictures. Schedule a time to organize your pictures every single month. Get it on the calendar, grab a glass of wine and carve out time when no one is around. Do the past month, plus one more month, until you’re caught up. Once you are current it will be easy to stay on top of it.
Here’s how to get started:
Gather all your digital photos together
Digital photos can live in multiple places including computers, tablets, phones, camera memory cards, or thumb drives. Get in the habit of immediately saving photos to your phone or laptop that people send you via emails, texts or ones you see on social media.
Declutter your digital photos
Ruthlessly purge as you are organizing your photos online. Delete dupes, blurry or meaningless photos. How many pictures of your cat sleeping or people you don’t remember do you really need? Every photo is not precious. Only choose the memories that bring joy and toss the rest.
Download & organize digital photos into albums or folders
Download photos from all your devices to your computer using a photo management program like Google Photos or Apple Photos. These programs can automatically analyze photos to make them searchable by keywords and group them into albums by location and person.
Sort your photos into a system you think will be the easiest way to find and enjoy them. I make a folder for each year, and inside it, a folder for each month. You could also create albums for special events, vacations, or family members so you can look back on a category of images at once. This is a good time to edit your favorites.
Pick your option for backing up your photos
You can back up photos using an option like an external drive that connects to your computer’s USB port or a cloud storage site. These sites will automatically sync with any images or videos you take. Some like Amazon Photos (free if you are an Amazon Prime member) offer unlimited storage at no cost, while others like Google Photos or Apple’s iCloud have limited free storage with options to upgrade your capacity for a fee.
Organize and digitize printed photos
For printed photos, scan your space for photos living under beds, in closets, in albums or scrapbooks. Gather them all in one place in your home where you can spread out. Develop categories (e.g. England vacation, son’s birth) and sort into envelopes or bins. Tip: use a clean white cotton glove when handling photos.
To digitize your print photos, you can do it yourself or hire a company to do it for you. Photo scanning services take all the work out of it and will offer professional results in less time. It can be expensive and there's some risk in dropping a box of original photos in the mail. Scanning your photos at home by yourself takes time, effort, and patience. If you have a multifunction printer at home you typically have a flatbed scanner on top. If not, you can buy a scanner specifically for photos. There are many good options like this Epson. Of course you can always use your mobile phone to capture images of your old photos. Finally, if you are looking to share a few pictures on social media (not for big jobs) you can download an app like Google Photoscan or Pic Scanner.
It’s a commitment but it’s worth it to keep these precious memories organized and safe. If you need a little guidance, we are here to help!