Archive for category: Importance of Archiving

If you love a good project and tackling that cluttered photo closet (or desktop computer) doesn’t scare you – go ahead and dive right in! After all, you have a personal connection to all those memories and you know exactly what you want to keep or toss. Here are a few Pro Tips for those of you who are managing a photo organizing project on your own:

Begin by sorting based on subject, event, or date. Choose a categorizing method that makes the most sense for you. Think ahead to how you and your family will want to access these memories in the future. If you’re working with printed photos – make piles or use small bins. If you’re organizing digital files – create folders and name them based on your preferred sorting method.

Toss or delete multiple or redundant images from the same event. After all, do you really need to keep 26 images from little Chloe’s birthday party? Also, eliminate duplicates or poor quality shots where the lighting or subject matter isn’t up to par. The goal here, is to refine your photo collection to only the “best of the best” images/photos.

Decide what you want to do with the physical photos and memorabilia long term. Do you simply want your photo closet more organized? Do you want to digitize all of your printed photographs? Do you want to make photo books for family members? Knowing your end goal, will help you make decisions on how to complete your project.

Let the local expert do the heavy lifting

Sure, you could scan your family photographs one by one on a home scanner, but do you really want to give up your weekends for the next 6 months?

Trusted local photo experts (like us), have the equipment, training, and professional experience to manage this portion of the project for you. We’ll carefully digitize, color correct and save your printed memories as digital files. Once your memories are in a digital format – you have countless ways to share them with family members and make fun photo creations with them.

PRO TIP: Determine which family members would like a copy of your digital files – not only today but also in the future. It’s easiest and most affordable to order multiple copies of your files at the time of digitizing. Think about your children, your siblings, your parents, etc.

Hiring a Professional

If a project like this just isn’t for you or if you’re managing an extreme amount of memorabilia – then you may want to consider hiring a professional to help sort, name, and organize the items. Our archiving team can help you get started and advise you on the best way to approach your project. We also have relationships with local professional organizers and archivists who can assist as well.

STEP 1: SORT

Take pictures out of albums, frames and boxes so you are working with only loose prints. Choose the photos you want to keep. Remove duplicates and poor-quality shots. Keep only the most meaningful images and toss the rest if you are working to downsize or eliminate clutter. At this point, you could stop and move on to Step #3.

STEP 2: ORGANIZE

If you want to get your photo collection truly organized, then continue sorting. Separate pictures into piles by subject, people, theme or year. Whatever makes most sense to you. Then, label those piles in chronological order. This will pay off when you move on to Step #4 and eventually share copies of your images with family members. Advanced sorting will make specific photos easy to locate on a computer or device later on.

STEP 3: DIGITIZE

Box up your printed memorabilia and bring them to a trusted local photo preservation expert (like us!) for scanning. The key word here is “local”. We never recommend shipping your most precious possessions across the country! Each print will be professionally digitized and saved as high-resolution JPG files. We can even create labeled folders to keep your sorting efforts intact. Your newly digitized images will then be safely saved to a media device of your choice, a cloud storage location and/or to any other location that you request. 

STEP 4: COPY + SHARE

At this stage, you’ll have various options for what to do with your digital image files – including how many copies to share. This is the fun part! Think about who would like a set of the scanned images – even if they may not completely appreciate them today. (IE: children and teens.) Once the images are scanned, duplicate media copies are extremely affordable – so be generous and share freely!

Your story is meant to be shared – and now is the perfect time to do it! Don’t wait until it’s too late to protect those photos of your grandparents, your high school prom and that family vacation to the Grand Canyon.