Photo Organizer: A Guide to Organizing Photos

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Technology has made it easy to snap photos. Nowadays, all you need to have amazing photos is your smartphone. You can now capture memories with a single click.

As you take more and more photos, it becomes a challenge to know what to do with them. That's where a photo organizer comes in handy. Do you have a collection of photos that you want to organize? Here is how to organize photos to help you find them easily.

Gather all your photos

Before anything else, you should gather all the images in one place. Get together all the photos; the printed and digital photos. You should also look for memory cards and backup hard drives that have your photos. Don't forget to check your flash drives for any photos.

Upload all the pictures to one hard drive

If you have been taking photos for a while, you'll need a large hard drive. If you don't have enough space on your computer's hard drive, then you can invest in an external hard drive. If you have printed images, you have to scan them onto your personal computer.

Delete unnecessary photos

If you are like most people, then you'll take over 20 pictures of the same view trying to get that perfect shot. You should get rid of unnecessary photos to avoid a build-up of photos. Get in the habit of deleting duplicate or poor-quality pictures right away. Bad photos are only clutter and make it hard to find good shots.

Organize photos into folders

Once you have deleted the unnecessary photos, you can now proceed to organize them using folders. Create folders depending on the events, such as vacations, special events, and other themes. If you are organizing photos on your personal computer, you can arrange photos by the themes or chronologically. There are different structures you can use to organize your photos.  You can use the year-date system or the topic system.

The year-date system

If you are wondering how to organize 30 years of photos, then the year-date system is the appropriate one. Create folders for every year up to the present and then have subfolders for each year corresponding to the months you took the photos. It is easy to organize photos using this system since most photos have date data.

All you have to do is drag the photos into its subfolder. At the end of every month, create a subfolder and add photos for the last 30 days. Start the process until you have organized all the photos. The year-date system makes it easy to find your photos whenever you need them.

The topic system

You can also organize your photos using the topic system. Even though it requires more work than the year-date system, it'll still keep your photos sorted. It is suitable if you frequently post photos online. Here's how to organize your photos using the topic system.

  • The first thing you have to do is skim through the photos and identify the broad categories. Create a folder for each of the categories.
  • You can create categories for family images, vacation, flower images, or scenic images.
  • Sort the images into folders by topic. If you have many photos, you can create subtopics.

Back up the photos

Once you have organized your images, you should back them up. Anything can happen and you don't want to lose all your photos in the process. Always make sure you have at least one backup. If possible, have two backups. You can back up your photos on the cloud or opt for a physical backup.

Now that you know the best way to organize photos, make sure you are consistent. Make it a habit to sort and delete photos regularly. You can now enjoy your pictures from time to time, since you know where to find them.

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