Traditional Photo Albums
Traditional photo albums are books where you place your photos in a clear protective sheath. They generally offer inserts for multiple photos per page so you can look at a few at a time. With this type of album, you can organize by time, place or person.
Example: When deciding how to organize photos of children, one way to do this would be to place all photos of one child in one pile and another child in another pile. Then organize in other elements, such as the year, the season, etc. If you want to chronologize your child's life from birth until they are grown, you start by placing baby pictures in the beginning and go from there. Always label these albums with who was there, what you were doing and when it was taken. This will help you find the photos easier when you want them.
Computer and Mobile Albums
One thing technology has given us is the ability to organize everything, including pictures. Most operating systems, Windows, Android and Apple, have the same style of album options so it is fairly simple to streamline the digital organization process.
The first step is to find all of your pictures from your camera, tablet and computer and put them together on one device as well as a backup device such as an external hard drive. Then, organize the same as your traditional album. Start by labeling your new album either by date, place or person, just a name you can remember. Then, go through each photo and add it to its corresponding album. As you go through the photos, you can put one photo into multiple albums. So, if you have one album of a place and another of a person and one photo that has that place and person, that photo can be used in both albums.
If you have traditional photos to add, you can scan them as well. You can scan the pictures with a scanner linked to your computer, take a photo of them with a camera phone or use a photo kiosk and save them onto a memory card. Once the photo is saved, it can be used in a digital photo album. This is a great way to salvage old photos that could otherwise be ruined.
The Cloud
The Cloud is a tool used to keep important files online instead of on your device. Everybody has had that moment when their phone is lost or the computer crashes, taking all of their irreplaceable pictures with it. When you add photos to the Cloud, they are saved virtually, not on your device. You can access them anywhere, anytime, even if you don't have the device. There are options for storage on the Cloud. Google and Microsoft both offer free Cloud storage to a certain limit. Once you reach your limit, you need to pay for more.
Another option is social media. Google+ and Facebook both allow photo uploads and neither have a limit on space. Social media lets you organize into albums so they are still easily accessible. You are also sharing your photos with friends and family immediately so your loved ones don't have to wait to share your experiences with you. Both Google+ and Facebook also offer privacy settings so if you don't want others to see your photos, they won't. These settings can be set so that your photos can be seen only by you, only by friends, friends of friends or everybody. The limit is up to you.
Organizing your photos is simple, although it can be time consuming if you have many photos. By using online methods, you are also saving your photos. When people lose everything in a house fire or robbery, they say that the worst thing they have lost is their pictures. When pictures are stored in the Cloud, they are there forever. The end result of organizing pictures is worth the work you put into it, making your memories once again come to life.
Robert Mizrahi
NYC Professional Home Organizer
NYCOrganizers.com
