{"id":1617,"date":"2013-10-02T19:03:11","date_gmt":"2013-10-03T00:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/?p=1617"},"modified":"2016-07-15T23:18:08","modified_gmt":"2016-07-16T04:18:08","slug":"organizing-digital-photos-simply","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/2013\/10\/organizing-digital-photos-simply\/","title":{"rendered":"Organizing Digital Photos \u2013 Simply"},"content":{"rendered":"

We all know that there are tons of options \u2013 i.e. software \u2013 for organizing digital information, including our photographs.\u00a0 This is not this blog.\u00a0 A blog about photo software might never happen \u2013 although I have used several of them, none of them meet my needs enough that I use any of them exclusively (only when they serve a need I have).\u00a0 Truth be told, I don\u2019t want to give up control to a program \u2013 not completely, not ever.\u00a0 What this means for you is that I am talking about organizing your photos on your hard drive \u2013 and then you can use any software you choose.<\/p>\n

First, you need to get all your photos into 1 folder \u2013 which you might already be doing since computers these days often have a folder so labeled.\u00a0 If your pictures are all over the place \u2013 even digitally \u2013 then you\u2019re making more work for yourself in finding them when you want them.\u00a0\u00a0 If you\u2019ve never had a system for organizing your digital photos, don\u2019t worry about further organizing of these \u2013 you can do that over time.\u00a0 Create the system going forward \u2013 and if you do nothing else, get all your precious photographs into one location on your computer \u2013 off your camera, phone, etc. \u2013 and take the time to do this regularly.<\/p>\n

Second, you need to decide how you\u2019d like to have your pictures grouped together (i.e. a digital folder) \u2013 it can be easy to set things up for chronological organization with digital photos.\u00a0 At least it can be easy as long as your camera and phone have been set with the correct day and time \u2013 that data is included within the image.\u00a0 Just because it\u2019s easier to do chronological organizing doesn\u2019t mean this is right for you \u2013 or that you can\u2019t incorporate it into the system somewhat.\u00a0 If your son\u2019s birthday is in early October, you probably want to divide the pictures of him from the party and his costume for Halloween \u2013 though maybe you do want an \u201cOctober 2012\u201d folder.\u00a0 I discuss this in Organizing Photos<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As with all organizing endeavors, one of the things that either makes things work or makes them break down is the quantity you are grouping together.\u00a0 Therefore, consider the number of pictures that will make it worthwhile to create a folder to keep them together.\u00a0 The challenge can be that we all have some random pictures that don\u2019t quite fit into a larger category \u2013 so we need to decide how we\u2019re going to handle this.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s talk about specifics \u2013 if you want to go chronological it could look like this:<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>

Here’s 1 way to set up a chronological folder system for your photos<\/p><\/div>\n

You can see that the months are in alphabetical order rather than chronological, although your photos are still organized chronologically \u2013 at least all of one year is together within that folder.\u00a0 This is one reason some people will use numbers \u2013 and put them in the format of \u201cyear\u2013two-digit month\u2013two-digit day (when applicable) [space] and other data (if desired)\u201d so that the view then matches our expectations.\u00a0 Then you have different options \u2013 though here you can see the way the computer organizes the folders based on name.<\/p>\n

\"chronological<\/a>

Here are the two format options for month and year<\/p><\/div>\n

You could make the year folder or if you\u2019re using the date formatting, you don\u2019t absolutely need it.\u00a0 Although here is an example still inside the year folder \u2013 if you kept with the date naming, the pictures would all be chronological.\u00a0 If you look at this example, there are two folders that do not include the day \u2013 and those get placed before any folders with days listed, so keep this in mind as you decide about the folders you make and the format of how you label.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"labeling<\/a>

Using “xxxx-xx-xx info” is another way to order photos chronologically<\/p><\/div>\n

This is the easiest way to organize photos.\u00a0 You don\u2019t need to worry about labeling each image \u2013 as the images are collected and organized within their labeled folder and tend to be chronological due to the metadata in the image.<\/p>\n

Some people choose to label the picture itself.\u00a0 The biggest challenge with this approach can be the time and energy to do this for each and every image \u2013 and deciding what information to include in the name.\u00a0 The longer the name, the more of the text might be hidden, and could make the process of finding specific pictures more cumbersome.\u00a0 Of course, you could also do a combination \u2013 where you label the folder with the broad information and then the photos have more of the details of the image.\u00a0 Here are two examples of how long names can impact what is visible: on the left is the list and on the right are the mini-icons and both have pictures with a \u201c\u2026\u201d which indicates that the full name is longer than the available space.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Showing<\/a>

The “…” on both left and right sides show long names being shortened<\/p><\/div>\n

How ever you choose to organize your digital photos \u2013 make it work for you.\u00a0 I use a combination \u2013 where our trips get a folder for each year.\u00a0 Then there are other folders that are simply more general \u2013 some of which include dates.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a view of some of how I\u2019ve organized my digital photos \u2013 though I\u2019ve discovered it needs a tune-up!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"my<\/a>

Here’s a view of how I’ve organized my digital photos<\/p><\/div>\n

Remember, organizing your things \u2013 whatever they are \u2013 is setting things up so they work for you.\u00a0 How do you look for things?\u00a0 Would it make more sense to have a folder for your children \u2013 and then subdivide from there?\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t make a difference how you do it, it matters that it makes sense for you.\u00a0 It\u2019s all about being able to find and appreciate your photos when you want.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Digital photos can quickly become overwhelming in their quantity \u2013 which makes it that much more important to create and keep them organized. Here\u2019s how I\u2019d recommend developing a system for yourself and all your prized digital photos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,27],"tags":[10,8,18,5,22,15],"class_list":["post-1617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-organizing","category-technology","tag-behavior","tag-discipline","tag-goals","tag-household","tag-productivity","tag-resources"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7p82c-q5","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1617"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1629,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1617\/revisions\/1629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}