print photos Archives - Save Your Photos

Nov 22 2017

Save Your Photos: The 2 Second Rule & the ABCs

As you sort your photos, resist the urge to reminisce and linger. There will be plenty of time for that later. Instead follow the 2 Second Rule. Don’t hold your photo for any longer than 2 seconds, or the time it takes to determine its pile.

Do you remember when we took our film to be developed at the local photo lab or grocery store? We would drop our film off for one hour developing and get doubles or triples so we could give the extra to family or friends. Did you even make it out of the parking lot before you were flipping through the envelope for your ‘first look’ at these photos?

The problem with this ‘era of convenience’ was its contribution to excess and waste! Our good intentions produced boxes and boxes of printed photos that accumulated through the years, and we’re paying for it today.

Use the 2 second rule and the ABCs to quickly cull and sort your photos. Click To Tweet

The ABCs of Photo Organizing

Professional photo organizers use a simple method to help their clients sort their photos, using an easy to remember acronym – the ABCs. And use the 2 second rule to help you quickly toss the duplicates and sort the rest.

A is for Album

These pictures are the best of the best! The ones that belong in an album, and the memories that you would mourn about if you lost them. These are the photos that you’ll want to digitize, backup, share, and display. It doesn’t mean we’re going to put all these pictures into albums; it just means they are ‘album worthy.’

B is for Box

These photos are the extras that support your best. They are the ones you aren’t ready to part with but want to have access to at some point in the future. These photos will be archived for safekeeping but not necessarily digitized.

C is for Can

Yes, you CAN re-purpose these pictures or throw them in the trash can! Your collection is filled with doubles, triples and REALLY BAD photos. If your photo doesn’t fall into one of the above categories, then it’s a C photo. We encourage you to be brutal here and set a goal to fill a garbage can with these! Use the 2 second rule to make quick decisions about your C photos.

S is for Story

Does the photo tell a story? These pictures play a significant role because there is something illustrative about the picture even though it may not be obvious. A picture of a single tree in the backyard may seem meaningless unless it’s the full grown sapling your Great Grandpa had planted before he passed away.

Does using the 2 second rule and the ABCs work for you?

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.

Nov 15 2017

Save Your Photos: Themes or Chronological Sorting For Print Photos

If you already have some chronology in place, look for ways to build on that structure. If your photos are a ‘hot mess,’ try themes for easy sorting.

Sorting your printed pictures will be very different from the way you sorted your digital images. Printed photos would lack dates and details unless you or your parents took the time to jot that information on the back of photos or in albums. Your timeline will come in handy as you begin to compare pictures and time periods for information and clues.

How To Sort Print Photos

Are you going to sort your pictures chronologically or in themes? Is there any structure to your collection that you can build on?

If you survey your photo collection, you likely took most of your photos in themes. You probably have birthdays, vacations, weddings, graduations, babies, sports and so on. Organizing by theme has many advantages:

Themes make it easier to pull together a photo album. Put an entire theme into one album like a vacation album, or take a handful of photos from each theme for a family yearbook.
Themes are easier to identify than dates. You may not be sure which year a Christmas photo was taken, but you’ll know it’s Christmas!
Themes translate into tags and keywords. Once digitized, themes make it easier to determine keywords or tags when you move them into your digital photo hub.

If your photos are a mess of disorganized prints with no structure, then we recommend a theme based approach.

If you already have some chronological organization in place then keep this intact and look for ways to build on that structure. You can still identify themes, and group photos based on your end goal.

With your structure in place, set up some index cards in sorting boxes or on a table and use these to group your photos as you sort. Jot down details on the index cards so they can be scanned in with your prints.

Need to organize your print #photos? Consider using themes or dates or a combination of both. #saveyourphotos Click To Tweet

A Few More Sorting Tips

Be gentle, wear gloves.

Your older photos may be delicate, and all your pictures are susceptible to further deterioration with residue from your fingertips. Wear your cotton gloves anytime you are handling your photos.

Set a timer.

This can be tiring work, so set a timer for 1-3 hours maximum and give yourself time between sorting sessions.

Nov 01 2017

Save Your Photos: Prints, Home Movies and Keepsakes

Consider these goals as you work with your printed photos, home movies, and other tangible keepsakes. Reduce the clutter, organize and identify, digitize and backup and create a photo-safe archive.

Now that we’ve addressed your digital photos and videos, are you ready to tackle the rest of your memory collection?

Your other memory ‘assets’ are printed photos, photo albums, scrapbooks, slides, family artifacts, kids’ artwork, documents, home movies and any tangible item that contributes to your family story. We suggest you approach this next phase with four goals in mind.

Reduce the Clutter

Your boxes may be bulging with memories, but we know from experience that your collection is filled with stuff that can be tossed. Duplicate prints, memorabilia that has lost its significance, broken trophies and more. Let’s see if we can lose a few pounds in the sorting process!

Organize and Identify

Your memory collection will be easier to access, digitize and share when you create order and identify your most important photos, movies, and memorabilia.

Digitize and Backup

Your printed photos, home movies, treasures and memorabilia are just as vulnerable as your digital images that haven’t been backed up. Until you digitize your physical collection, these memories could be lost through fire, flood, natural disasters, human carelessness, natural decay and any unexpected tragedy.

Create a Safe Archive

Once you’ve identified the keepers in the collection and created digital copies, you’ll want to ensure that your originals are archived and stored in a photo-safe environment.

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!