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So I am going to start the unending project of organizing photos for about 40 years worth of not organized photos. Where to start? I am going to put them in albums, after scanning them on cds, the newer digital ones I'm going to print out them put them into albums. There are photos of people I don't remember or who aren't in my life for years and years, there are photos of nature like sunsets, there are photos of family through the years, there are winter photos of snow, there are photos of vacations, etc. I just don't know how to organize these in the albums. People only photo albums? By years? Do I keep photos of people no longer in my life? Do I put photos of gardens, sunsets, etc separate? Tips, help, advice, opinions, etc are very much needed. I'm dreading this, but I'm ready to tackle it. Needs to be organized in some way vs looking at photos and wondering when they were taken or who is this person etc. Thanks. Oh, this is for actual photo albums with pages that you flip through like a book, not computer.
So I am going to start the unending project of organizing photos for about 40 years worth of not organized photos. Where to start? I am going to put them in albums, after scanning them on cds, the newer digital ones I'm going to print out them put them into albums. There are photos of people I don't remember or who aren't in my life for years and years, there are photos of nature like sunsets, there are photos of family through the years, there are winter photos of snow, there are photos of vacations, etc. I just don't know how to organize these in the albums. People only photo albums? By years? Do I keep photos of people no longer in my life? Do I put photos of gardens, sunsets, etc separate? Tips, help, advice, opinions, etc are very much needed. I'm dreading this, but I'm ready to tackle it. Needs to be organized in some way vs looking at photos and wondering when they were taken or who is this person etc. Thanks. Oh, this is for actual photo albums with pages that you flip through like a book, not computer.
like i said above, the better software like lightroom does not require you to put photos together in any particular catagory .
you can just store them by date ,end of story.
you can then apply as many keywords for sorting and re-calling as you like.
no way would i want to put all my sunsets together in one folder because then i can't recall them by location or anything else.
keywording is really the best way.
take for example my flowers.
i have them in a folder by date.
i then keyword them as an example like this:
ny botanical gardens
roses
flowers with bugs
flowers
i then give them a star rating of 1 to 5 based on quality.
that one photo in that date folder can be called up with other photos matching that sort criteria with one click..
i can even flag them to go into a collection for eventual printing all with one click as i work.
with 10,000 photos there is no way i would ever remember what photos were in what folders if i didn't use some sort of key wording system to re-call them.
here is another issue when you use other catalog programs . eventually you evolve to some sort of adobe product.
adobe will not recognize any keywords most of the time you added elsewhere. if one day you decide to use lightroom or bridge odds are you will have to start from scratch .
my feeling is if you are serious about your photos do it right from the start and use lightroom. it is cheap enough and simple enough that i can't see playing around with anything else just because it may be free.
it is easy to store your photo's on external hard drives and to share that drive with a lap top and have everything compatible with each other .
my experience is that the old saying is very true:
the poor man always pays twice. either with money or your time.
Last edited by mathjak107; 07-03-2013 at 03:52 AM..
I use Photoshop Elements to catalogue my photos. All pictures are imported into folders which are named based on the shot date. From there I create albums within PSE for key events and apply tags.
Hmm, maybe I didnt explain very well, but I am not sure how to arrange photos into actual photo books. The old fashion kind with the pockets to slide in a 4x6 printed out photo and then you store the book on your bookshelf like a book. You can turn the pages and that kind of book. I don't know if I should arrange them by years or what do I do with photos from a long time ago that are people no longer involved with or distant family you dont really know. Or landscape photos, do they go in a separate book? Obviously the computer is great with programs for your digital photos, but the printed out ones that are in the old fashioned books I don't know how to organize, I can't arrange them in folders lol. Thanks, hope that clears this up.
I used scanmyphotos.com. They had a Groupon offer at one point. I only ended up scanning a hundred or so that were not the same size as the others.
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