A wee while ago, I asked all of the lovely readers on my
Facebook Page what you might like to have covered off and fetaured on the blog in the New Year. One such request was how to organise and store all of the digital piccies that we now collect these days.
Because I am quite frankly no expert on this topic (and I really do need a swift kick up the backside to organise these myself), I have asked the very knowledgable Brian Jensen from
Dell to pop back and give us his ideas and thoughts on the topic...
If you’re a digital photo buff, you know
how easy it is to fill up your computer with mountains of pictures. You
probably have everything from last year’s vacation in the Caribbean to your
Great Aunt Betty’s birthday party stored on your hard drive. With all of these
photos, it’s easy to see how they can get jumbled and hard to find. If your photos
are in need of some organisation, read on for some easy tips for how to get
started:
Decide on Your
Method
There are a number of ways that you may
wish to organise and classify your photos. A great way is by date—go ahead
create folders on your computer that list the years the photos were taken, and
then within the year folders create month folders. This way works well if you
know approximately when the photos you are looking for were taken—you can go in
and find them quickly and easily.
Another way that you may wish to organise
your photos is by event, such as “Trip to California” or “Ski Vacation.” This
works especially well if you tend to take photos of special occasions. You’ll
always have those memories right at your fingertips.
While these are two of the most common
ways to group your pictures, don’t feel that you have to use them. You may want
to create different folders for different photography subjects (one folder for
shots of your kids, for example, and another folder for pictures of your dog)
or group things by colour (an awesome idea if you’re a nature photographer). The
choice is really up to you, but one thing to remember is to be consistent. Find
a way to organise your photos that works for you and then use the same method
for any pictures you take in the future.
Create Labels
Now that you’ve got your digital
memories grouped, you should give some consideration to how you’ll name them.
Create a naming convention that has meaning to you and will allow you to find
your photos if you search for them.
You may consider naming the photo with a
brief description of what’s happening and listing who is in the shot. You can
also put the place where it was taken, the date, and anything else that will
help you find it later.
Back It Up
All your pictures should be saved in two
places. Saving pictures on your laptop is great, but there is a chance that you
could lose your hard drive either through a hard drive failure or a disaster of
some kind.
In order to prevent that, you should save
your pictures onto an external hard drive or some other external media device,
such as an SD card. These are very inexpensive and can offer a great peace of
mind if something bad were to happen to your computer.
Print a Photo
Book
If digital access isn’t the most
important thing to you, printing a photo book is a great way to store your
pictures in an organised fashion. There are many websites where you can upload
pictures to create a professional looking photo book. These sites will then
print, bind and mail the book to you. Some of the sites that offer photo books
are Shutterfly, Snapfish, MyPublisher and Blurb. In addition to these popular
photo sites, many local stores that offer photo printing will offer photo books
as well.
Store Pictures
Online
In addition to organising your photos on
your computer and backing them up on an external hard drive, there are places
pictures can be stored online. The good part about this option is that no
matter where you are or what happens to your laptop, you
can get to your pictures from anywhere that you have Internet access.
What are your tips on organising and
storing digital photos? Leave a comment and let us know.
