Over the years, we have collected piles of photos that we have failed to organize. A few were put into photo books or on walls, but for the most part are in shoeboxes without any sort of order. I was pretty good with the first 2 kids for at least a few years, but by the time the 4th came along, let’s just say it was a major ordeal to find appropriate pictures whenever he had to prepare some kind of picture timeline for school! I am determined to go through all of the pictures this year, and need a system to organize them, decide what to display, decide what to discard, etc. I’m interested to see how CC parents out there (especially the more organized one) organize their photos, and am open to any and all suggestions. Help me achieve my goal of a fastidious photo collection by the end of the year!
I love pictures and have always organized them. I have approximately one photo album per year. The first two years of my first’s child’s life I have two. I would just write inside and on the outside the year.
I put them in chronological order as I had them developed, so basically it started in January and ended in December. This might be a bit more difficult for you if you did it this way if they are just scattered about.
I also have two huge boxed where I kept the large school pictures, scatterings of other things. Every couple of years I might go through it and have a good laugh. My parents left me all there photos when they downsized and there are not albums…just a mess. I have to say to me…that is like a treasure chest. I pick on up from 1952, then the next one is 1995. I have fun doing that.
You have been much better than I have about photos- you did what I WISH I had done! If I don’t start now, my children will be doing what you are doing with your parent’s photos, and what I am doing with my parent’s photos. My Dad loved slides, so unfortunately that’s where most of their photos are. I have been sporadically going through their slides to scan and then print the ones I like, but it is a long process. With my photos I guess I need to start organizing by periods of time and then put them in albums. I’m going to need a lot of albums!
Two ways:
Chronological: easiest. Label photo envelopes with event/date and then label photo box with events/dates I can find most anything. But it’ll have to be me looking for that hidden gem. Not for generational use.
Event based–Christmas/birthdays/vacations/school pix–Have friends who love this. Easy to scrapbook etc because the history of milestones is readily available. But if you don’t organize
from the beginning it’s probably too far gone.
You can do both easily–make digital copies of your loved photos and keep them in separate files.
Slides–you can do it! I took pictures of slides (I had/bought the camera/accessories) but scanning works also. Yes, time-consuming. But so worth it to capture your childhood/siblings/family.
If you digitally save your favorite photos tag them in multiple ways so they come up. Tag with name, event, year etc. It’s time consuming but later on it’ll be --Christmas! and all the christmas photos appear! Super vacation! And those appear. Or little Johnny! and all the Johnny photos pop up.
I just make a “favorite photo” file on my computer to save me from a thousand tags. There are always those favs you want copies of. Put them here
Generations would love chronological order. Go with that.
Go through your pix, pick out favs and scan into some file for eternity. Make a CD.
Make some notes about why the photo is worth saving if that’s part of your purpose.
Thanks for all of the suggestions. I have been using an old printer/scanner that I bought more for documents as well as an independent film-to-digital converter for the slides. Neither one was great for pictures as they are both old and slow. I just ordered a flat bed scanner that has great reviews and has Photoshop elements built in. I’m going through pictures now and sorting them chronologically (sort of), and am going to start scanning as soon as I get the scanner. Then I may start ordering photo books on-line for the prized photos- the prices for these have come down drastically and I love how compact they are. I’m just starting this process, so keep the suggestions coming in!
How do you find the time to do all this? I’ve somehow become the family archivist but it would take years to go through everything. It includes 16mm “silent” movies, 8mm, slides, negatives, prints, VHS, digital, and more! It would also cost thousands to digitize everything. So… it sits in boxes
takeitallin, what’s the scanner you are using? I have about 180 rolls of film from 1990-2001 that I need to scan/sort. That doesn’t even count the old family pics. My grandmothers actually wrote who was who on the backs of the pics (thank goodness! it helped me a lot with the family trees), and I am trying to figure out how to preserve that info when I scan.
I recently got a lot of old photos from my Dad. I couldn’t go through them all thoroughly but I would guess the decade and sort them into big envelopes based on that. It’s a beginning. Then, I threw out all the negatives. It hurts to throw anything out but with photos, you have to make some choices.
I’m very grateful for the older photos that are labelled because I wouldn’t know who was who or when or where so there is an argument for us doing that for photos that we DO have that information for.
For now, they sit in boxes awaiting lots of free time. Lots!
For my own photos I was quite organized and filled photo albums that I numbered on the spine and filled with dates and places on the inside front cover. If I took a photo out, I would put the book’s number on the back so I could replace it more easily. Have many of these photos gone astray over the years? Oh yes! And I have lots of extra photos. Lots of time!
I just ordered an Epson V600 flatbed scanner (refurbished directly from Epson) which will scan slides and 35 mms negatives. It won’t scan film rolls as far as I know. It has great reviews but I haven’t tried it yet so will keep you posted. I was using a regular printer/scanner for photos and a Wolverine digital scanner for slides but it was a very slow process. As far as the time to do this, it will take a long time!!! I’m hoping for a few hours a week and will just get it done as I can. Our youngest is away at college now and the other 3 are on their own now so I do have more time but with work and caring for parents, it is still limited. I will just do the best I can.
I’m not sure what the best way is to preserve memories with how quickly technology changes and ink that fades or disappears over time.
I save my photos to CD-R. They are supposed to last 100 years. DVDs are supposed to last only 50 years.
Inks from home printers doesn’t last that long except for HP ink which is good for longer time (but off hand can’t remember now). Best thing for copies is to have them commercially done on decent photo paper.
@greenwich, although I have dates on the spines of my photo albums, I don’t have numbers. I think that’s a great idea, and easier to put away then the date. I’m going to do that.
It has been a while since I put photos into albums. When I did, it was for the most part in chronological order. I’d develop a roll and then put the pictures into an album. If I was including photos others had sent me it might be more random where they were placed. I’d put those either near pictures from the same event or with other photos we’d been sent or with people I think of as going together. I tried out scrapbooking for a while, and that was fun but time consuming, I’d take forever deciding what I wanted to do with it, and it surprised me how quickly purchasing a special scrapbook and all the other little decorative items could add up. Photos from the same event were placed together with any additional mementos and decorations. I also liked choosing which scrapbook paper to use, taking into account color, design, and occasion.
@conmama, I used to use glitter glue to do the numbers! We always had it around when the kids were younger.
I’ve been very good at filing photos away in albums, chronologically. The bookshelf in the family room is full of them - there’s no room for the new ones. But @greenwitch - I didn’t keep track when the kids took pictures out of the albums - several pictures have gone astray over the years. Vacations - especially significant ones, also had their own separate albums.
From last year, I’ve decided to do photo books instead of albums. Just started working on the 2014 book - considering that we take thousands of pictures, this is going to take a while. In some ways, I don’t like digital pictures - way too easy for my H to click a couple of hundred over a weekend and way too much trouble for me to go through them finding the “good ones” to keep!
But for several years now, I’ve also made backup dvds with pictures of each year. The first few years, it was one dvd for the entire year. 2014 was more like 4-5 dvds!
arisamp–put them on CDs rather than DVD if you want them to last. Really. My grandfather was a photographer and seeing pictures he made almost 100 years ago is great. They were developed with silver of course and meant to last a long, long time. Kodak slides have about 100 year span which is why they’re still around for many families. Slides from lesser companies have faded out already.
Now will a CD tech thingie be available? You may have to convert at some point but with SO many CDs out there it’s a good bet that there will be some sort of CD reader available for a very long time. Mark those CD’s too.
Our current photos unless saved digitally or preserved someway on good paper with good inks (commercial) won’t be around. 100 years is not very long when it’s family history that is being preserved.
It would be a bummer if you end up having to lose the handwriting on the back in getting rid of the hard copy. I was into handwriting analysis for a while. Most of what I learned was based on cursive and now if people use a pen or pencil at all they usually print.
To add to the time it takes for you to do this: take a moment and label pictures wherever appropriate. Someone who is important and unforgettable now, may not be in future. My grandmother tools lots of family photos, but looking at a picture taken in 1918, I often can’t begin to gues who those people are.
Pick out the FAVORITE photos and caption them in some way.
But unfortunately, my fav photos from my mom and dad are sort of random to them and they would never have picked them out as something to save for the generations. . Just them in casual settings with their friends at parties etc.