4 Steps to Make Sure Your Photos Stay Organized

Posted by Lauren


Do you ever cleanup your room only to leave your stuff laying around again the very next day? This may be a habit you have after cleaning your room, but you don't want to get in the habit of haphazardly saving your photos on your computer after you've spent time organizing them. 


Last week I explained the importance of organizing photos on your computer and gave you several steps on how to organize them. This week's post is about how to stay organized once you've spent your valuable time organizing your photos into folders. 

                      By Jill Clardy http://www.flickr.com/photos/jillclardy/5495654355/


1. Schedule a time to transfer photos to your computer. If you take a lot of pictures, you will want to set aside time at least once a week to transfer photos from your digital camera to your computer. I recommend Sunday afternoons since this is when most people have some down time. The amount of time you will need depends on how many photos you have as well as whether or not you decide to do steps 3 and 4 below. If ordering prints and sharing photos on social networks is something you plan on doing, then I strongly recommend you do so right after you transfer photos to your computer. This ensures you don't forget in the future and helps you to easily remember which photos you have already printed and shared. I advise setting aside enough time one Sunday to go through the 4 steps to see how long they take you. Then it will be easier to estimate how long this process will take in the future.


2. Make sure you have a folder already created for each event. Before you hook your digital camera to your computer, make sure you've created folder(s) for the photos you are going to transfer. Whether you are categorizing by event, date, or holiday, this makes organizing and saving them much easier. 


3. Order prints from your favorite online photo printer. Once your photos have been transferred and saved to your computer, this is the best time to order photo prints and products from an online printer. You have categorized the photos so you are more familiar with what photos you have and which ones you want to print. I recommend printing at least one 4x6 of each photo for preservation purposes. Please see my article How to Preserve Photos and Why It's So Important for more information on why this is important. Also, if you're wondering why I suggest printing photos online please see The Advantages of Printing Photos Online.


4. Share them on Facebook and other social networks. If you use Facebook or other social networks to share your photos, then make sure to upload them after you've saved them to your computer. This ensures that you remember to share them. It also prevents you from having to keep up with which photos you've shared and which you haven't. Just look through each group of photos that you save to your computer and choose the ones that you want to share on social networks. If you do this at the same time that you organize and print your photos, it will be much easier for you.


I hope that you found these tips useful and that they will help you to stay organized. 


Do you have any other advice for keeping your photos organized? Please leave your comments or questions below.

4 Simple Steps to Organize Photos on Your Computer

Posted by Lauren

Unless you are super organized, there's a good chance that like me you have photos scattered all over your computer. A relative or friend sends you an email with photos from a recent event and you just download and save them to your desktop without really organizing them. Even if you are already fairly organized, this article will suggest ways to organize your photos that you may not have considered.

1. Transfer photos to your computer often. This is extremely important, especially if you take a lot of photos. The more photos that you have on your digital camera, the more cumbersome it will be to transfer them to your computer. It will take longer and you will consider it more of a chore to organize them. If you like to transfer several weeks or even months worth of photos onto your computer at a time then by all means, continue to do so. I have just found that transferring them more frequently is easier.

2. Decide where you want to store your photos. Some people prefer to store photos on their Desktop. Others store their photos in My Pictures, iPhoto, or other locations. Deciding where you want to store your photos really depends on how you want to store them. For example, if you have a lot of photos you may want to create a "Photos" folder and within it create subfolders for each cateogry of folders. I will go into more detail about ways to organize your photos in step 3. In fact, it will probably be more advantageous to read steps 2 and 3 before deciding where and how you want to store your photos.

3. Decide how you want to store your photos. How you want to store your photos really depends on how many photos you have. It's also a personal preference. If you know that you have photos from multiple events such as birthdays, holidays, and graduations, then you will probably want to create a general "Photos" folder on your desktop and then create subfolders within that folder for each event. If you rarely take photos then you may want to put folders for each event on your desktop instead. Another option is to categorize photos by the month or date. You can also create folders within My Pictures. On a PC, just right click on your Desktop or within My Pictures and go to "New" then "Folder". On a Mac, create a new folder on your Desktop by clicking on the File menu and selecting New Folder.

4. Create your folders first. This step will make organization a lot easier for you.  If you know you have graduation, 4th of July, and back to school photos on your digital camera, then create individual folders for these events in the location of your choosing before you plug your camera into your computer.

There's nothing worse than saving your many photos individually in My Pictures or on your desktop without organizing and categorizing them. It becomes nearly impossible to decide which photos to print and a hassle to view and appreciate them.

Do you have any other suggestions on how to best store and organize photos on your computer?

How PhotoStasher Began...

Posted by Lauren

This week I thought I would share an article that I recently wrote for Shoestring Venture. They asked me a series of questions about starting PhotoStasher and asked me to write an article for their site. I talk about how I started PhotoStasher and why, as well as my journey up to this point.

I think it will give you guys some insight into who I am and my passion for my business. Enjoy!

http://shoestringventure.com/2011/05/27/have-you-ever-thought-about-printing-facebook-photos/