Get Your Printed Photos Organized!

Follow these five step from Sheila DeHart of Tidy Up Organizing to get your printed photos organized.

I’m pretty sure many of you face this same dilemma. My kids are in their 20s, so that means the majority of their childhood was captured using a film camera. Gasp! I was the mom at Disneyworld with the fanny-pack full of rolls of film. And it was almost unheard of to not get double or triple prints if the store was offering it for free! So now what? You have tons of printed photos stored in the basement or attic. Maybe yours are nicely organized in shoe boxes or maybe they are tossed haphazardly in large plastic totes.

Either way, there is a better solution out there!

Let’s start by getting set up in the perfect conditions for getting these printed photos organized in 5 easy steps:

Step 1: Set Up Your Work Space

You’ll need a worktable with great lighting. This table could be your dining room table or a folding table set up just for this project. Just don’t use the kitchen table, you are going to want to spread out and work on this when you have free time. Don’t think you are going to pack this up just to serve dinner to your family!

We are going to start by sorting through the photos. However you currently have them stored is fine, just take a bunch out and start going through them.

Step 2: Toss Your Photos

Here is the “rule of thumb” when it comes to sorting photos. Keep the ones that are interesting, in focus, mean something to you, have good composition or tell a story. Toss the ones that are blurry, out of focus, unflattering, too much scenery or you just don’t recognize anyone in the photo.

For example, I have tons of pictures of my kid’s school parties. I only keep the ones my kids are in. The pictures of the other cute kids at the party won’t mean anything to anyone in my family in 20 years, so they go in the trash.

You will be surprised at how many photos you are going to toss.

Step 3: Sort It Out

Another decision you will have to make is how you want them sorted. Chronological order is the most pleasing to me. Maybe you are the type of person that would like them sorted by event, then the way to do that would be to make categories such as holidays, birthdays, vacations, family times, sports, etc. Within each of these categories, you could put them in chronological order too.

5 steps to organize your printed photos #saveyourphotos Click To Tweet

Step 4: Time to Scan

Once you have completed the task of sorting the photos, the next step is to get them scanned. You can check out the Association of Personal Photo Organizers (APPO) for a professional photo organizer near you who can help you with this. Scanning the photos and then putting the digital images on a disc or flash drive and also storing those images in a cloud storage is the safest place for your families cherished memories.

Step 5: Store and Display

What you do with your printed photos once you have them sorted is entirely up to you. If you want them on display in beautiful albums, this will be so easy to complete now that they are sorted and in chronological order. Another way to store them is in archival storage boxes to keep them safe.

This is your family’s story, how you choose to tell it is up to you. We at APPO are here to help!

---

Sign up today for more great photo organizing tips directly in your email box.

We also invite you to visit our sister blog The Photo Organizers for more tips and in-depth knowledge from some of the top photo organizing industry professionals. To find a photo organizer near you, visit the Association of Personal Photo Organizers.

---