Thanks to digital photography, we can now take hundreds to thousands of photos in one afternoon. The problem is organizing those photos so that they can easily be found at a later date.
What usually ends up happening is we sort through hundreds and hundreds of photos before we find what we’re looking for. Don’t let this keep happening. Let’s look at how to organize your digital photos.
Trash the Junk and Duplicates Before You Download
Before you download photos from your phone or camera, take the time to go through the photos to delete anything that is a duplicate or just trash. Chances are you’ll have at least some photos that include your finger or are too blurry. Trash those now so that you don’t have to deal with them later.
Give Photos Appropriate Names
Naming photos can take quite a while. This is why you want to do it after each session. Think of names that make sense. For example, if you’re dealing with a photo from your child’s first birthday party, the name might be Alex’s First Birthday – Birthday Cake. You get the idea.
Choose One Place to Store Photos
Don’t let your photos be stored in several locations. All your photos should be on one area of your hard drive. This doesn’t mean you can’t post photos to multiple places like Flickr. It just means that on your computer all the files are in one main folder.
Create Main Categories
You want to break your photos down into categories. For example, you might have Pet Photos, Wedding Photos, Vacation Photos, etc. This makes it so much easier to find what you’re looking for or to just look through certain photos.
Setup Subcategories
You want to setup subcategories in your main category folders. For example, under Pet Photos, you may have a folder for each pet. Under vacation photos, you would have a folder for each vacation. You can create as many subfolders as you want to organize your photos as much as you want.
Sort
When you download photos, take the time to sort the photos into the categories and subcategories that make sense. Do this each time you download photos so that the task can be completed quickly and easily.
It can be a nightmare to find a digital photo. However, with good organization, you’ll be able to quickly locate the photos you need. It will take time to setup this system, but once you’ve got it going, you’ll be able to easily organize your digital photos.
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