Organizing Your Digital Photos

Confession: I took 288 pictures in December. No, wait. There's still 26 pictures in memory card #2, so make that 314. But I will forgive myself. It was, after all, the season for picture taking.

But who am I kidding? The other months are usually not that much different. This has been one problem I've had to deal with since I've gone digital. Because it's so easy to take 100 pictures knowing I can easily weed them out later and not spend unnecessary $$$ getting everything printed, I tend to get click happy. So what's a click happy gal to do? ORGANIZE.

Here's what I do with my digital photos.
1. Whenever possible, I delete bad pictures (as when someone blinked) right on my digital camera.
2. As soon as I can, I upload all my pictures onto my computer, choosing the option to clear my memory card as soon as the upload is done, so the card is cocked and loaded for the next photo op.
3. If I have time, I will make another quick scan of the uploaded pictures and delete more bad ones.
4. I then upload to an online site. I use Smugmug for a yearly fee, but many online photo service stores will let you store pictures on their site for free so long as you use their services. At the online site, I create a folder for each year+month.
5. Usually at the beginning of each month, I allot time to go through the pictures and decide which ones to print, editing when necessary. One reason I like using Smugmug, if I mess up during editing, I can always download the original with no additional charge.
6. Soon after I receive my prints, I copy the pictures to a DVD for additional backup. I use DVDs instead of CDs because DVDs can hold about 4x more.

Just for fun, I made this TSR Gallery project, aptly titled "A House Full of Memories" to house my DVD backups.

Tip: When creating backups, if you use Photoshop Elements you can use the MOVE function which actually deletes the pictures from your computer, leaving only a low resolution copy for viewing in the organizer. This frees up your hard drive for more pictures. Just remember that with the MOVE function, the pictures are deleted so guard your backups well. Whenever you want to edit a picture that has been MOVEd to a "removable media", you will be asked by PSE to re-insert that media (your DVD backup).