Email this Page to a Friend!
 
Angie Felix ByLine

Organizing Your Photos

You haven't missed a single moment with your camera. What you may be missing, though, is the ability to find the pictures once you've had them developed or downloaded them to your computer. Why is it that you can't find any of the ten precious pictures you took of your daughter on Santa's lap last Christmas?

Probably because your photos have piled up, whether on your computer or in the closet in the spare bedroom. The endless stacks of prints and negatives and the hundreds of images on your computer with names like 0097.jpg leave you feeling helpless each time you try to find something.

Unless you enjoy feeling like you've won the lottery on those rare occasions when you find what you're looking for, you need to get organized. The next time your mother calls asking for pictures of the kids last Halloween or Easter, wouldn't it be nice to know right where they are?

We've gathered some simple tips to help you organize your photos, whether they're digital or prints.

Digging Through the Digitals

Organizing the photos on your computer will not only make it easier to find them, it will free up valuable hard drive space. Here's how to get started:

  • Rename your photos

    Do NOT leave your photos in the file names that they appear in when you download from your camera to your computer. If you haven't adopted the practice of changing them already, it will be beneficial to go back and rename all of the pictures you already have. Use names that make it obvious what the subject of the picture is, like a person or pet's name. Include a date in the filename, even if it is simply the year the photo was taken. If you have several photos of the same event, you can give them the same name, just add a sequence of numbers to the end. An example would be: Sam2000_001. This tells us that Sam is the subject, the picture was taken in 2000, and that this is the first of multiple photos of Sam.

  • When you take new photos, change the file name as you are downloading to avoid recreating that pile of work.

  • Eliminate the excess

    When you download from your camera to your computer, you can take a quick peek at each of the pictures. If there are blurry or poor photos, don't save them! They will only add to the mess and take up valuable space. Likewise, if you have several pictures of the same thing, pick one or two of the best and delete the others.

  • Do a little trimming

    Pictures that are only going to be used for sending over e-mail or posting into online photo albums do not need to remain in the two to three megapixel size that they are when you download them. These images can be reduced to a reasonable size such as 640 by 480 pixels to save space. Photos that you plan to enlarge or use for other purposes, though, should be left in their high-resolution state.

    Photos generally download from the camera in a JPEG format, which is considered lossy, meaning that each time it is saved, it loses a little data of the image. JPEGs have a high compression, meaning they take up less space than other file types. For e-mailing or posting on the web, this is the optimal format because it has a lot of detail and color in it. However, images that you will be editing a lot, you may want to save in a TIFF format, which is considered lossless, but does take considerably more space.

  • Use folders to your advantage

    Pick an organizational system that works best for you. If you're good at remembering when events occurred, you can make a folder for each month of every year. If not, you can make folders for events specifically. "Tom's Birthday" or "Christmas 2002" might be titles of some of your folders. Or, you may prefer to simply make them for subjects like "Tom," with subfolders for each year.

    Scrapbooking specialist Paris Dukes and her husband use a system of folders to keep their digital pictures organized. They create a folder for each year, then subfolders that divide the year into quarters, labeled A through D. Under each of these are folders for events such as daughter Natalie's birthday or Easter Dinner. They are conscientious and keep each folder, A through D under 640 MB, the amount that a CD will hold.

Photo Managing Programs

Although organizing your digital photos in files on your computer will make finding pictures easier, it doesn't mean it will necessarily make it painless. For a simpler way to find and sort your pictures, you may want to consider using a photo managing program.

The fancier programs, like Paint Shop Photo Album from Jasc or Adobe's Photoshop Album allow you to enter multiply keywords as search terms. That way, even if you don't remember the exact title of a photo or when it was taken, you can still find it.

Scrapbook Specialist Paris Dukes and her husband use a program called BreezeBrowser to manage their digital images. The program gives a full view of the photos individually as well as a contact sheet view and a histogram view of images, allowing them to see the settings their camera was on when each picture was taken. BreezeBrowser allows photo editing, as well as the ability to add comments or captions and other data to the photo file. You can find out more or download BreezeBrowser here.

One of the greatest features of photo managing programs, is that many have what is called a batch tool. This tool allows you to make changes on multiple photos all at once. For example, if you want to name a group of photos "Jason's Birthday," you can select them all, rename them all at once, and the program will automatically assign sequence numbers to the end of each photo to distinguish them from one another. In addition, batch processing can be used for rotating photos and other functions and is also available on Windows XP.

If you're interested in a photo manager, but don't want to spend the money, download the PreClick Photo Organizer. This free program will help you automatically adjust the brightness/contrast of your photos, perform rotating operations and enter vital information to help you keep track of the memories associated with each photo. PreClick also has a great search tool to assist you in finding your pictures.

Organizing Scrapbook Work

You've sorted through each and every one of your photos. You disposed of the bad ones, mailed some off to family and friends and have a huge pile of ones you want to scrapbook. Now what? That pile is almost as intimidating as the original heap of pictures, and it will require more work. Suddenly your favored pastime is almost dreaded.

It doesn't have to be scary, and its not expected (by anyone except you) that you'll take care of this pile all at once.

Go through and jot down some notes on acid-free paper that you can file with the pictures. Write down the date or time frame of when the picture was taken, what the event was, and anything else you remember-maybe a quote or something for journaling. If you already have an idea of some pieces you want to use on the page, certain paper, die cuts or journaling, jot that down as well. Better yet, if you already have the paper or die cuts, you can file them with the picture so it's all together when you get a bit of time to work on your album.

Scrapbook specialist Arlene Peterson takes the photos she plans to scrapbook and immediately puts them onto a blank white page in her album using a small piece of adhesive. She also selects the papers she wants to use, and often die cuts and journaling, and puts all the pieces into the album behind the page.

Keeping all of this together allows her to have all the materials she needs when she's ready to do the page. It also gives her a heads-up on materials she'll need, allowing her to look for sales on products like sheet protectors or papers, rather than going out and buying them at full price.

LeNae Gerig also has a special system for the photos she plans to scrapbook. She puts the prints into sheet protectors. Each side holds 4 - 4"x6" pictures. The sheet protectors are put right into her album, where they can be viewed like a normal photo album and they stay until she gets a chance to make the pages. If she chooses not to use all of the photos she originally picked out, LeNae leaves the sheet protectors in the album, where they make a nice complementary page to the actual scrapbook page.

The same methods can be used with your digital pictures. You can easily make a folder where you keep a copy of the photos you wish to scrapbook. In this folder, you can also keep a text document with notes about the event, and ideas you have for scrapbooking the photos in the folder. Print it out and you'll have a project list. Or, simply make prints of the photos and file these with hand-written notes.

Either way, when you some free time, you'll be organized and ready to scrap!

  • If you want to scrapbook some of your photos, print them, or send them off to family and friends, you can make folders for each of these. For example, have a "To Scrapbook" file. Make a second copy of each of the photos you want to scrapbook later, and put one in this folder and one in the folder where the photo belongs.

  • Save space and make a back-up

    Saving images to your hard drive takes up a lot of space and isn't very safe. A hard drive crash will leave you empty-handed when it comes to your cherished pictures. Your best bet to protect yourself and your photos? Once your photos are organized, use a CD burner to save your images to CD's. If you don't have a burner, find a website that will permit you to send the files over the internet and pay them to make the CD's for you. It's a good idea to make two copies just in case. One to keep near your computer, and one to keep somewhere outside of your house. This one can be stored at a nearby friend or family member's house or in a safety deposit box.

  • Original artwork is priceless

    Reducing the size and compressing photos that are going to be used for e-mail or online purposes is okay, but don't make changes to the others. Resizing, adjusting colors or cropping photos should be done to copies only. Before you begin editing an original photo for a specific project, be sure you do a "Save as" and save a copy of the file under another name. This way your incredible instinct to save every few minutes will save your work, but not overtop of your original.

Organizing your prints

Keeping those mounds of photos organized may look complicated, but it's actually pretty simple once you get going. Here's how to go about it:

  • Weeding through the piles

    The first step in conquering that mountain of prints is to go through and sort them.

    Hot Off The Press scrapbook specialists Arlene Peterson and LeNae Gerig suggest sorting your photos as soon as you get them back from the developer. Both select the prints they know they want to scrapbook and separate them from the rest of the photos.

    When sorting through your pictures, follow these tips:

    • Set aside pictures that you want to scrapbook or enlarge. These can be in a "to do" pile and you can gradually work on them as you have time.
    • Throw out bad pictures. Out of focus or poorly composed shots are not going to be useful to you for any purpose, they just take up valuable space.
    • Sort out the duplicates. Unless you're putting one copy in your scrapbook or album, you don't need to keep an extra copy. These can be sent to friends and family or disposed of.

  • Picking your organizational method

    You have to determine the best way to organize your photos so that you can find them. Ask yourself "How do I look for photos?" If you look for things by when they occurred, you may want to sort chronologically, in groups for each month of each year. If you look for photos by who they are of, you should set up your system to divide pictures by subject (person). You can sort chronologically within the subject, or have a folder for each subject within each year.

    If you're unsure about what category a photo should fall into when you're sorting them, you can always create a reference list that will tell you what goes where. This way, when you can't remember if a photo of your family in front of your new house was put under "house," "family portraits," or when it was taken, you'll still be able to find it.

    Labeling your photos

    You may want to make some notes about the event or date of a photo. While some say that it is a good practice to print the subject and date of an event on the back of a photo, others are strongly against it. Whether or not you want to do it is up to you, but remember to use an acid-free pen to keep from damaging the photo. Products with a PH level between 7.0 and 9.0 are optimal.

    Another option for labeling includes simply using pieces of paper. Arlene uses strips of acid-free white paper to slip in between the photos and label them or write journaling to keep with them. This paper is cheap and easy to find at your local office supply store. LeNae suggests that you can even use a post-it note attached to the back of a photo to make notes.

  • Photo Storage

    There are many a couple of options of what to store your photos in. LeNae files the photos she chooses not to scrapbook by month and year in acid-free photo boxes. She labels the outside of each box with the month and year of the first photo in it and the month and year of the last photo in it. This way, she always knows what's there.

    You can also use acid-free sheet protectors or envelopes. Do not use rubber bands, paper clips, scotch, or masking tape on your photos. These items can cause stains, scratches or dents in pictures. It is also a good idea to avoid albums with self-sticking leaves (known as magnetic albums), as they may leave lines or rip pictures if you try to remove them.

  • Avoid the Enemies

    No matter what you put your photos in, though, you should think about where you keep them in your house. Remember that the three greatest enemies of your photos are temperature, humidity and light. You should keep your pictures somewhere with a consistent temperature, away from direct sunlight or ultraviolet light and away from water or humidity. Some recommend storing them in the front closet, somewhere where you can easily grab them on the way out the door in case of a fire.

Regardless of how you choose to organize your photos, the important thing to remember is to maintain that organization as you acquire more and more photos.