Summer Digital Photo Organizing
Summer is a great time to organize photos. It is fun to do as you relive the moments of the year. We know the value of our work because our photos are our priceless possessions. However, it might feel overwhelming to organize photos because we all have zillions of photos on various devices. Not to worry! With a series of manageable baby steps, chunking the work into smaller units, we can organize our photos and enjoy these even more.
Tidy up as you go.
Deleting photos as you take them makes it easier to get organized. We often take multiple of the same shot and choose the best. Go back right away and delete what you did not use. You can also delete photos instead of scrolling through social media. You can make this manageable by deleting while you wait in line.
Categorize with digital albums.
Create digital albums for special events, holidays, vacations, and other times you want to keep a group of photos together. Create a shared album if you want to share a category of photos with others. Google Photos and Apple’s Photo app automatically categorize photos to search by person, location, or keyword. A digital photo album can be uploaded to printing sites to create a photo book. These can also be uploaded already grouped together as a backup for your photos.
Use consistent naming and categories
Organized photos use easy naming conventions for searching. Name folders with broader topics for groups of categories. An index will help you remember the names of your categories and the name convention. Information to use in a naming convention includes the year, names of people, the event, or the holiday.
Back up your photos in three locations
According to professional photo organizers, everyone should back up their photos in three places. Online automated backups include iCloud or google photos. External hard drives and backups on your computer hard drive are all possible backups. There are many paid online storage photo options. Be cautious about changes to these options for duration and pricing.
Share joy with your photos
There are many ways to share your photos once you have organized these. Use widgets on your devices to keep photos on your home screen. Photo books are a special way to celebrate friends and family. Occasions like family reunions, weddings and annual albums are wonderful ways to remember all the special occasions all year long. Family text threads are an opportunity to share special moments at the moment. Organizing your photos gives you the opportunity and ease of sharing.
I have to be honest and I say I don’t name and save my photos. If I were a young parent, starting all over again, I would do things differently, much like you’ve outlined here. We straddled the physical photos and transition to digital photos, so things are all over the place. My physical photos are well organized, my digital ones, not so much.
My family enjoys using the “Skylight” app to send photos to my parents in another state. Not only do they see the photos pop up on their frame, but we can see each others photos in the app. Very fun!
Such great advice, Ellen! I especially love your suggestion about editing photos while waiting instead of engaging in social media scrolling. That’s a great use of your time.
I’m a big photo taker and love how Apple organizes photos by date. Plus, as you mentioned, it also has a good search feature. That works for me. Aside from deleting photos I don’t like or are similar to others, I don’t need to organize further into special folders or topics.
Photos are what we all love! Having these organized makes such a big difference.
I love these apps that add photos and share. We are in a group with our family too! We also share a family chat thread that is so much fun and photos are often added there.