Organising photos

mae

I could not decide where to put this question and decided on OS as you seem the most organised.

I have hundreds and hundreds of photos from over the years that are just in bin bags :o:o and I think it is about time I organised them.

But where to start? How should I organise them?

I did think about just buying some plastic storage boxes with lids and putting them in there so they are better protected but then they would still be disorganised :cool:

Has anyone got a system they would share as I seem to be at a blank on how to start this mammoth task

Oh and by the way the thing that has triggered this eventual realisation that its about time I sorted them is that my DS will be 18 soon and I am going to do him a photo album of photos of some of his memories from birth to 18. I am not very imaginiative though so it will probably just be straight forward picture album unless anyone has any ideas to make it more special?

Thanks

sunflower76

Our printed ones all tend to be kept together in the wallet they came in with a few notes added on the inside of it telling me where and when they were taken. We did start to buy special albums from the places we went to and put all the photos in there when we got back but then we moved to digital so this idea went by the wayside.

My mum has loads of albums that the picture slide into and has put the majority of them in chronological order by person; so mine are altogether and my brothers are all together. Where we're both on the photo I think it's pot luck which album they were stuffed into :rotfl:

Some of her others have been put into albums by chronological order and from the same film which, to me at least, makes a lot more sense!

I recently did an album for my dad that just contained photos of me and rather than give him the originals, I scanned them in and printed them off on photobox or snapfish (free with codes) as I didn't want to lose the original photos. This may be an idea for you if your 18yo DS is likely to lose or damage the album?

Gers

Scanning is the way to go! We've now got every single photo scanned and saved onto a portable hard drive/a memory stick and a CD so that they are safe. Chucked out the hard copies. It took some time to get over the emotional attachment to some photos (and have kept some of the very old ones) but it certainly freed up a whole lot of space and helped in the decluttering process enormously.

Now I can make my own prints, get photobooks ordered online and make all sorts of gifts when necessary!

rosieben

I was ruthless and got rid of the less than perfect photos that we all seem to hang onto - the out of focus ones, or headless people - then I scanned everything. I still kept most of the originals though!

re the album, you could use digital 'quick pages' which is a very quick way of scrapbooking the photos, there are loads available on scrapbooking sites. you would just need a basic graphics program to set them up and could get them printed at boots or somewhere? not sure where the cheapest printer is but someone here would know I'm sure.

mary43

I sorted mine out at the beginning of the year. They were in albums but were in a bit of a muddle. Took a while but now they're sorted into things like
'holidays'
'garden' - the different things we've done and other gardens we've had
'twins' - my teenage twin grandchildren
Son no.1
Son no.2
Foster children I've looked after
Pets
Old black and white ones from way back
General for those non-specific ones including houses we've lived in

Least now I can find a photo I'm looking for a lot easier.

Seakay

Gers wrote: »

Scanning is the way to go! We've now got every single photo scanned and saved onto a portable hard drive/a memory stick and a CD so that they are safe. Chucked out the hard copies. It took some time to get over the emotional attachment to some photos (and have kept some of the very old ones) but it certainly freed up a whole lot of space and helped in the decluttering process enormously.

Now I can make my own prints, get photobooks ordered online and make all sorts of gifts when necessary!

This certainly sounds like the way to go. What kit did you buy and how diffiicult was it to learn to use?

Patchwork_Quilt

Wow! All I did was put mine into those flip albums. They don't take up much space. However, I'd be interested to hear about scanning them. How long did it take?

Butterfly_Brain

I have mine sorted by year in Albums

angelavdavis

I did a combination of Rosieben's clear out of poor quality ones and file the good ones in albums, and Seakay's scanning the older school/college/younger holidays photos and posted them on facebook - throwing the originals away and saving the scanned copies on a ext drive. I scanned these over the course of three weeks on/off whenever I was at the PC, I did a few so I worked through them. The plus side of posting on facebook was that I was able to share long forgotten memories with old school mates I have rediscovered!

Gers

Seakay wrote: »

This certainly sounds like the way to go. What kit did you buy and how diffiicult was it to learn to use?

I only used a scanner and saved them in folders in 'My Documents' - I use Photoshop to view and do any needed alterations but the basic software that comes with your PC should be sufficient really.

Easy peasy really!

amanda40

I have bought Photobooks via the costco website and they were fab - you can make it into a story book or a straightforward album. The quality was fab and quite often you can get money off. I have recommended them to a few friends who used them for birthday gifts and the recipetents were highly delighted!! They are so professional looking too - perfect for a special birthday!