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If you think you can get overwhelmed organizing your traditional film photos you’ll be doubly overwhelmed with how quickly digital images can add up!  It’s important to keep current and keep your digital images organized. I recently vowed to organize my digital photos and I must say I was tempted to just delete everything a few times.  My husband loves to take 5-6 photos of the same thing just to be safe and my eyes started to cross trying to figure out what to keep and what to delete.

I’m trying to organize my digital photos because I’ve fallen in love with the process of making slide show videos out of them.  So in love I even purchased a new computer for myself and after 20+ years of being quite PC, I bought a Mac!  I’ve not had much time to play around with my Mac other than organize the billion photos my husband has taken over the years, but I’m excited about it.  Another way to be creative.  And don’t think I’m going totally digital, I’ve been stocking up on my decorative papers to make cool CD and DVD envelopes!

Here’s my advice for organizing your digital photos and I’ve thrown in a few of our most recent photos for you to enjoy!

Immediately delete any images you don’t want while taking your photos.  This is the first step in organizing digital images.  If you aren’t happy with a photo, delete it, and re-shoot on the spot.

Don’t leave images in your digital camera.  Download the images into a folder that includes the event and date in the folder name.  This is also a good time to delete any images that you don’t want.

A sunset captured in Palau.

Once images are downloaded into a folder on your computer, make an index file.  Create a word document and use it to describe the event, people in the photos, location, date, and journaling.  This is a must! 

If you have time, rename the images to include name, date, location or other reminder of what the photo is about.  This can be done later, but it is important.  This is also another opportunity to delete any unwanted images or to send images to others via e-mail.  The longer you wait to organize digital images the more likely you are to forget the details like location, date, and even people in the photos.

The new addition to my craft studio my husband is building.

It’s a good idea to back-up your photo inventory on a timely basis so you don’t lose any images if your computer has problems.  It’s a good idea to keep different categories of CD or DVD copies too.  

There are several excellent software programs that help keep your digital photos organized.  Programs like Greenstreet Digital Photo Album Deluxe, OnTheGoSoft Photo Backup and Preclick Photo Organizer.  These programs organize, backup, and even allow for digital albums.

A huge grouper we saw diving!

Use subfolders for key events like birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and other annual events that you know you will take photos.  The main folder should have the event name and all subfolders will have the year.  For example:  Main Folder is Maria’s Birthday; Subfolders are 2003, 2004, 2005, and so on. Vacation folders should include location and year with an index that includes specific dates and people.

Ken's 50th birthday.

If photo editing, make sure you keep the original image intact.  Make a copy of the image you want to photo edit and work with that.  The more you photo edit, the more the image loses some quality so it’s important that key original images be kept as backup.

One of our orchids in bloom.