photo organizing Archives - Page 2 of 3

Aug 02 2017

Save Your Photos: Take A Photo Inventory

How many photos do you have in your digital collection? What about your print collection? What about film, video and other memorabilia? It’s time to take a photo inventory.

Assess the mess. It’s time to take an photo inventory! You need to know how many photos you have so you can plan the scope of your project and the time involved.

Digital Photo Inventory

Taking a count of your digital photos can be done in a few clicks. Be sure to look for various formats for digital photos such as JPEG, TIFF, PNG, GIF, and Raw.

Organizing your pictures? Take a #photo inventory so you know what you are dealing with. #saveyourphotos Click To Tweet

Print Photo Inventory

Printed photos are a little less exact.

Professional photo organizers measure photos or weigh them when estimating. A one-inch stack of photos is approximately 100 pictures. This number may be less if you are working with older photos which may have a thicker backing. If you weigh boxes of photos, 6-7 pounds is the equivalent of 1000-1200 photos.

Don’t forget your slides. A circular slide carousel holds either 80 or 140 slides. If you are unsure about the slides you have, you can check out this rare slide guide.

Home Movie Inventory

When counting your home movie collection, you will find it helpful to count the various film and video formats. Not sure how to determine the formats? These two links will take you to The National Archives for information on how to identify them.

Film Formats

Video Formats

And don’t forget to count your memorabilia!

What are your final numbers?

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.

Jul 26 2017

Save Your Photos: Set A Goal

The first step to getting your photo life organized is picturing the end result. In other words, set a goal for yourself and your photos, videos and memorabilia. Just like any goal, you need to have a concrete vision with a timeline for completion.

Having an end-goal and a deadline will help motivate you towards completion. Think ahead to when you have your entire photo and video collection organized and accessible.

How would you like to share and enjoy these pictures?
Do you want a family yearbook with highlights?
Do you want a photo gallery on your wall with milestone events?
Do you want online photo albums that other members of your family can access?
What about a video slideshow to enjoy with some popcorn?

Choose a few fun ways you plan to celebrate and share your photos – this is the fun part!

Next, think about who you plan to share your photos with and let them in on your plans.

Create a goal and timeline for your #photo #organizing project. #saveyourphotos Click To Tweet

You are more likely to achieve your goal when you tell someone who can hold you accountable.

You can do it! Once you’ve set your goal, let us know what it is. Maybe you can inspire someone else’s goal.

Jul 19 2017

Save Your Photos: Get Set Up for Success

Any good organizing project starts with a good workspace and a plan. This week we are discussing how to find a great workspace to ensure your photo organizing project is set up for success.

Set Up for Success: Find a Work Space

Let’s get down to business. Remember the saying “out of sight, out of mind”? Depending on the size of you photo collection, you may be working on this for a while. (And you probably have a lot of photos because, remember we are all overwhelmed!) If everything is tucked away or hidden in closets and on computers, it will be easy to forget. You’ve made a commitment to organize your photos, so let’s get them into an area where you can work on them.

Set yourself up for #photo #organizing success with a great workspace. Click To Tweet

Designate a temporary workspace in your home that is visible and allows you to spread out. A large table in the corner of a room or a separate room is ideal and causes the least amount of disruption. When you’re project is visible, you’re more likely to remain focused on completion. If you set yourself up on your dining room table, then you may have to pack it up again when you want to sit the family for dinner! If space is an issue, take a photo of the locations where your photos are stored so you can create a vision board of what you are dealing with.

Set Up For Success: Hunt and Gather

Next, gather your memory collection into your workspace. Locate all photo albums, loose printed photos, memorabilia, kids artwork, negatives, slides, undeveloped film, memory cards, family artifacts, home movies (ex. VCR tapes, miniDV’s, film, etc.). Determine the devices where you have photos stored, such as your smartphone, computers, and tablets. Resist the temptation to start sorting yet or reminiscing! There will be time for that later.

Ready, set, GO!

Jul 12 2017

Save Your Photos: Why Are You Overwhelmed?

Photos are the memory keepers of our personal story. They are reminders of love, laughter, good times, vacations, family, friends, and traditions. They help us reflect and remember a life well lived.

Today we are at risk of losing our visual inheritance to natural disasters, technological obsolescence, and digital overload. The ability to take and share thousands of photos in an instance has lulled us into thinking that these pictures will always be available to us, but too often, that isn’t the case.

No Wonder You Are Overwhelmed

The statistics are staggering.

In 2015 people took 1 trillion digital photos and that number is expected to grow to 1.2 trillion by the end of 2017. There are currently an estimated 3.6 trillion photos stored on computers, and devices and those numbers are expected to grow to 4.7 trillion by 2017. It’s also estimated that there are over 1.7 trillion paper photos stored in albums, attics & shoeboxes, waiting to be digitized and backed up.

In 2017 we will have 4.7 trillion #digital #photos stored on our computers & devices. #saveyourphotos Click To Tweet

What about your old home movies? Video tapes, like VHS, were very popular, and some 6 billion tapes were sold in the US with an average length of 2 hours each. That’s 12 billion hours of footage of new babies, first steps, weddings, barbecues, and graduations. But videotapes were never meant to be a permanent medium, and deterioration strikes them in as little as 20 years, even when stored under optimal conditions. Less than 1% of these memories have been transferred to digital, a much more durable and lossless format. Also the ability to view these 6 billion tapes in not an option any longer since most devices have become obsolete.

Is it any wonder people are overwhelmed with their memory collections?

How To Save Your Photos

Take a deep breath; we’re here to help. Continue to follow this blog and we are going to share tips on how to organize your backlog of printed photos, digital photos, media, and memorabilia. Our goal is to help you choose the pictures, stories, and memories that matter the most and safeguard them for generations to come. And most of all, we want to help you get them back into your life now so that you can enjoy them today!

Sep 22 2016

No Picture? No Proof? Photos Capture The Stories of Our Lives

This is a Guest Contribution by Lori Krause, Photo Life Manager, and member of the Association of Personal Photo Organizers.

No Picture? No Proof?

Now that’s a loaded statement! And can be interpreted a couple of different ways. But we’ll get back to that in a minute. First, let’s talk about why we take pictures.

Or why I take pictures.

I am not a professional photographer, far from it! I don’t know my aperture from my aspect ratio, much less anything about shutter speed. What I do know is that I’ve always enjoyed capturing important people and moments in my life through photography. But until about 6 years ago, I didn’t realize that I was also capturing proof.

The 50th Wedding Anniversary

In 2010, my in-laws were celebrating their 50^th wedding anniversary. I was asked to scan their family pictures and slides so the siblings could put together a video for the celebration party. While I was at it, I also scanned all of my pictures as well. How many times have you found a picture and thought, “Oh my goodness, I had forgotten all about . . . ?” I had a lot of those moments!

Like, “Oh, wow! There’s my husband heading to a fishing tournament in a sweatshirt he printed with one of the first color printers!”

or “Look, there’s the picture of my goofy son who won first place in a baby contest.”

But it wasn’t enough for me to remember those moments, I wanted the ability to find those pictures and share the moments with others. So, while I was scanning, I also set up a system in my computer to organize, the now thousands, of photographs. I can pretty much find any picture within a couple of minutes.

OK, so I can find the pictures quickly, but what stories do they tell? What are the memories and how can I share them today?

If there is no picture, is there no proof? #saveyourphotos Click To Tweet

Yesterday’s Memories Shared Today

When that sweatshirt (the one mentioned above) was found and my college daughter quickly declared it was hers, I could show her the picture of her dad wearing it almost 30 years prior. As my son was moving out and came across a little trophy, I could show him the picture that helped him claim that trophy 25 years ago.

krause-1 — *The “sweatshirt resurrected!”*

I also have recently captured memories as well.

krause-4 — *Sitting in the last row (who knew there was a row ZZ?) for the 2012 MLB All Star Game.*

Remember that 50^th Anniversary party that started it all? Over 100 friends and family came from all over the country for a surprise dinner to celebrate them. I made my in-laws a photo book to commemorate the weekend. (I’ve since made a photo book for almost every family vacation and holiday as well.) When my daughter graduated high school and wanted certain pictures for her page in the yearbook, I was able to find them easily. For Christmas gifts each year, I make calendars for my parents highlighting pictures of the grandkids, and they love them! It’s important to organize those pictures so you can find and relive those memories captured on film.

I’ve heard it said that a birth certificate proves you were born and a death certificate proves you died but a photograph proves you lived. So, no picture, no proof!

My name is Lori Krause. I live in a suburb of Kansas City with my husband of 28 years and a recently adopted dog who keeps me on my toes. We have 2 amazing human kids: one working on becoming a certified cicerone (beer expert) and one in college studying sports marketing.

I’m a non-practicing registered nurse. I’ve been in some sort of nursing since 1981. I love nursing, but healthcare is changing. I also love taking and organizing pictures. I had no clue I could transition careers so easily! As a nurse, I looked at the whole patient and evaluated what I could do to help and care for the patient. As a Photo Life Manager and member of APPO, I evaluate all of the client’s needs and help them care for their photographs.