With the end of the holiday season comes a new year and the promise of a fresh start. Now’s the perfect time to consider a few new resolutions when it comes to your favorite photographs, but don’t worry—none of these recommendations include a treadmill or dessert bans! These three steps will have you organized and backed up in no time flat. Just pick one half hour once a week and you’ll be amazed at how well-sorted your photo library becomes!
Out With the Old: Did you know that the average person has about 1,500 digital photographs on her computer? Sometimes the mediocre pics crowd out the truly stellar ones, and too many random images can clutter your collection as well as your hard drive. All you need is a half-hour in front of the computer to sort through your photographs. Delete the blurred images, the duplicate photos and pictures of old acquaintances with whom you no longer stay connected.
For those who take photographs for school or fundraiser events, now is the time to copy the images to CD/DVD and deliver them to the proper people. Your hard drive will thank you and you’ll feel better knowing they made it into the right hands.
Find Your Favorites: Many photo organizing software programs have a function that lets you mark your favorites so you can find them for the next slide show, gift, or scrapbook project. It only takes a little time to scan through your pictures to find your favorites and tag them accordingly. You can then easily select those favorites and copy them to CD/DVD to send to loved ones or relatives.
Hard-Copy Back-Up Made Easy: Now that you’ve deleted the old photos, marked and organized them, take one of the CDs that you made and bring it to our shop for 4x6 prints. Viewing photos on the computer is fine but nothing compares to the experience of holding a printed photograph in your hand. Plus, a printed-picture is the perfect back-up solution as paper doesn’t crash! Better yet, make two copies—one to keep and one to share.
