Organizing your photos is a very important task in preserving your family’s history. If you are like me, you have a vast array of photos on your phone, memory cards, computer hard drives, social media, and even in the back of the closet in a shoebox!
It’s can be an overwhelming project, especially if you have inherited decades of old photos.
So, where do you start in getting them all organized?
1. Divide and Conquer
I won’t lie, organizing your photos will be a very daunting and time-consuming task. So, put on a pot of coffee and turn on your favorite show. You may certainly be here for a while!
Because it can be such a huge task (depending on the number of photos), it will be impossible to finish up in one day. Plan on spending one or two days gathering all your photos to one central location. Yes, you will be on a mad hunt and there are a lot of places you will be searching!
Before you know it, all of your photos will be right at your fingertips and in a perfect order for creating a digital scrapbook!
2. Start the Search
- Search your computer for all .jpg files. You’ll be surprised how many are not in the “my pictures” folder.
- Check cell phones (yours, your spouse and all the kids) and any other mobile devices.
- Browse through your texts. You will always find good pictures someone sent you!
**iPhone Tip** – Select any text. In the upper right corner, select the circle with the lowercase i. Scroll down and you will see all the photos they have sent. - Log in to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Shutterfly, Dropbox, Google Photos, etc., and download your photos.
- Open your email accounts and sort by attachments. I found it was the easiest starting point to look for photos.
- Look for CD’s and DVD’s.
- Scan any printed photos you have tucked away in shoe boxes, old photo albums, frames, etc.
3. Arranging Photo Folders
The first step in organizing your photos is to create a folder on your desktop named “pictures” to serve as the common area to temporarily store all your photos.
Next, you can begin breaking it down further into additional sub folders. Create sub folders for each year, going back as far as you can. Starting with the most current, place your photos in folders according to the year they were taken. I keep these on my desktop and as I take pictures, I just drop them in this years folder and sort them later.
Certainly, you can stop there or continue creating additional sub folders to itemize by months, events and/or people. I create sub folders for birthday parties, Christmas, Thanksgiving, backyard barbecue, vacations, and specific people. For me, it is easier to find specific pictures that way.
Random Photos
File random photos in folders according to the person’s name. If you have photos that you absolutely cannot put with a date, file them according to person or event.
“What’s His Name” Photos
Don’t laugh, I promise you will find a couple of those! So, it’s good to have an “unknown” folder to file those pictures of “what’s his name”. There is someone out there that will probably be able to help you identify them.
4. Review and Delete (well…just file for now)
Now that you have all your photos sorted, you are ready to start sifting through and deleting get rid of … just set aside for now. Yes, I know how difficult it is to actually delete your photos. I have found it easier to just file them in a “to be deleted” file in your pictures folder. That way, you can look through them one last time before permanently deleting.
Start by deleting (or filing) the photos that are out of focus, off center, or the ones you simply just don’t like. If you took several photos trying to capture the perfect shot, pick out the perfect shot and remove the rest. Additionally, go ahead and get rid of (or file) those extra school pictures. Undoubtedly, you don’t need a whole page of the wallet size photos anymore.
Don’t worry if you only have the patience to organize one or two years. For the completed photos, go ahead and create your digital scrapbooks. You can always pick up where you left off.
Now that you have organized all your photos, take time every couple of months to file your new photos. In the long run, you will be glad you did!
Where To From Here?
You are done organizing your photos and have your equipment ready to go. Now, on to the photo editing software!
Before diving in to create your first digital scrapbook, take a few minutes and learn the basics of the software package you have chosen.
If you want to give Adobe Photoshop a try, our Series I – Photoshop for Beginners is a great place to start! It goes over the basic of how to get started with Photoshop in plain English!
Keep up to date with our latest news, inspirations, tips, tutorials and everything else we have going on! Subscribe to the DigiGirls Chatter newsletter and get the good news delivered directly to your inbox. No spam, no tricks and no gimmicks! It’s just fun and free information we want to share!
