printed 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.

Sep 23 2016

Why Print Your Photos?

This is a Guest Contribution by Chari Pack, Founder of PersnicketyPrints, who believes you should print you photos.

We are taking more photos than ever before, but what about preserving them? What happens when today’s high-tech data storage systems become tomorrow’s floppy discs?

In today's digital world, do you print your #photos? #saveyourphotos Click To Tweet

Entering A Digital Dark Age

Vint Cerf, Google VP and Father of the Internet, warned us last year of a “digital dark age”.

Why Print Your Photos? | SaveYourPhotos.org — “If we don’t find a solution our 21st Century will be an information black hole. We think about digitizing things because we think we will preserve them, but what we don’t understand is that unless we take other steps, those digital versions may not be any better, and may even be worse, than the artifacts that we digitized.”

Image Credit : http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/13/google-boss-warns-forgotten-century-email-photos-vint-cerf

The Library of Congress expresses the same concern with Digital Preservation when it comes to digital memories and provides the following Archiving Tips:

Identify where you have digital photos
Decide which photos are most important
Organize the selected photos
Make copies and store them in different places

Not only should we be printing our most treasured moments, we should also be aware of preservation. Will that inkjet printer you have next to the laundry room process images that will actually last?

Print Your Photos To Preserve Them

We live in a time of instant gratification. We want it now. At Persnickety Prints, we understand this; however, when it comes to printing, archival longevity is just as important. All Persnickety orders are processed in-house and shipped within 12 hours. Lab techs look at every single image as it’s printed and again once it’s completed. At Persnickety Prints, we still use a dark room. No ink. Silver Halide printing is still the most archival, fade and water resistant printing medium available.

How do YOU print your photos? Or do you?

After a long search for high quality affordable printing, Chari saw a need and created her own; Persnickety Prints.
Completely bootstrapped, Chari went from zero to hero and continues to grow each year without funding or investors. She is passionate about the customer, striving to educate and serve each one in this new digital age.
Before founding Persnickety Prints, Chari helped numerous organizations increase their online presence and revenue through her creative services. Chari graduated top of her class & received a Business Management degree from UVU. Her hands on retail knowledge and expertise comes from over 10 years of service at the retail industry giant, GAP.
When Chari is not working on the next innovative business idea, she is calling a customer about their low resolution image, driving one of her 3 boys to a soccer game, or racing her mountain bike.

Chari is Persnickety in all things.

Sep 08 2016

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!

Sheila DeHart lives in St. Louis, MO where she runs Tidy Up Organizing, a company that provides residential and photo organizing. She started her business to help people live happier lives by getting organized and out from under clutter. Once she started seeing how many of her clients were not enjoying their photos because they were not properly organized, she decided to become a Certified Photo Organizer. As a hobbyist photographer and Certified Photo Organizer, Sheila understands the value and importance of preserving her clients cherished memories. She is a member of APPO and NAPO.