Photo Organisation Guide
When your mum wants to see pictures from last year's holiday at the beach, you want to be able to easily find those photos without scrambling, and it's always beneficial to have them in a nice and organised spot. You don't want to have to rummage through the shoe boxes in your closet for those prints, or sift through your hard drive that is scattered with digital images. There are better ways to spend your time. Our guide will help you figure out what type of photo storage and organisation products you will need in order to present those special pictures without the stress of a search.
Organising Digital Photos
Digital photography 
is the new way to go, but weeding through hundreds (or thousands) of pictures in one folder of your computer is not. Here are a few tips to help you clean up the clutter and enjoy your digital memories.
- Thin your photo library. Delete photos that you know you won't need... you know, the ones where your thumb is over the lens or you had a bad hair day. This is the first step for organisation! You can go through the photos on your computer manually, but it's even better to get into a habit of deleting unwanted photos from your digital camera before downloading them onto your hard drive .
- Give your photos descriptive names. By changing the file name from a bunch of random numbers to "Uncle Sean's Birthday" or "Paris 2008" you will be able to find pictures with much more ease, but stay consistent!
- Batch categories together. Using the photo management program or doing it yourself, it's a good idea (especially for large quantities of photos) to put your labelled pictures into categories. Make new folders on your computer and call them things like "Family" or "Holidays" in which you can place the appropriate photos. This makes sorting a breeze.
- Back up your photos as often as possible. Not to be pessimistic, but there is always the chance that a power failure may result in lost pictures or a computer virus can wipe out your hard drive. Though we hope this doesn't happen to you, we do recommend being safe instead of sorry. Save your photos to an external source just in case! Think about an external hard drive , a flash drive , a memory stick , or burning the photos onto a CD . This is also a good idea when you need to open up more room on your hard drive -- you will still have the pictures handy while opening up memory on the computer.
Organising Prints
If you are anything like most people, you just keep telling yourself that one rainy day you will get around to sorting out all of those photos in the closet. Instead of putting it off, set aside some time and get it all done with these easy tips to help you organise.
- Gather your pictures. Find all of the pictures floating around in the closet , under the bed , in your desk , on the table , or anywhere that they are piling up. It's best to do this in a space where you can spread out the pictures and divide them into categories. You may want to write on the back of the photos with a photo pen ; include approximate dates and names for reference.
- Sort them out. You can group your photos by year or by category. For example, take all of the photos from 1992 and place them all in one spot or take all of the family Christmas photos and place them all in one spot. The choice is yours.
- Preserve the pictures. Put the sorted photos into a photo album or an archival photo box for storage. For the more creative and ambitious, you may want to create a scrapbook or a few photo flip books to display your pictures with your own personal flair.
- Display! Another way to present your prints and keep them organised is simply by using picture frames . A frame is a great way to bring attention to any cherished photos!
Related Guides
Browse through our guides for products and tips to further help you in your organisation process!
