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Tips for better searchability of your images long term.

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Today, we don’t give our digital photos much attention once they’re captured on our devices. Instead, we may think about doing something with them only when our phones run out of memory and prompt us to make more room by exporting the photos to other storage devices. Years of this saving go by, and then we find ourselves in the unforgiving sea of unnamed images.

 

Most people use the default file naming structure for our digital photos like IMG_9876 or JPG-2839. Unfortunately, these unidentifiable names leave many of us drowning in a sea of thousands of photos with no way to locate specific memories.

 

 

 

 

 

Using metadata and a consistent file renaming pattern increases the “searchability,” of your images. If you want to be able to quickly find your images, it’s important to start renaming your files now. Otherwise, a decade from now when you’re looking for a photo of your daughter’s first day of school to post on her graduation day, you might be wanting to pull your hair out as you try to locate it.

Consistency is key. Professional photo organizers recommend using a consistent system when it comes to renaming files. This will tie your entire collection together, despite the years that may separate certain pictures. Professional organizers also encourage you to find a system and style of renaming photos that will work best for you. Feel free to make variations on the following suggestion, but whatever naming convention you pick, be consistent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who, what, when and where naming approach. This naming system — who, what, when and where — has proved to be the most popular with professionals. For this system, you’ll include people, event, date and location in the file’s name. An easy reference to remember this organizational tool is: YYYY-MM-DD-location-event-who-sequence number. For example, a birthday party for your mom, Susan Smith, in San Francisco on May 23 would look like this: 2017-05-23-san-francisco-birthday-party-mom-susan-smith-JPG-2839.

Once you have named individual files, you can put images in folders. Professional photo organizers have found that the simplest way is to organize by year, and you always have the option to further consolidate by decade. You can also create folders for specific people, such as your kids, or events, such as vacations and sports matches.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where to find missing details. If you are unable to recall the specifics of a photo, refer to the file’s metadata. All you have to do is right-click the photo and then click on the option that says “get info” or “properties” to view the file’s metadata. This will reveal the date the image was created, which is vital for the above photo renaming system. But you’ll also find the file size, the name of the device that took the image and sometimes even the location.

Why do this now? The work may seem tedious at first, but consider the even more daunting task of trying to find specific image years from now if your photos aren’t organized. This is why photo naming matters! Start renaming your photos, and in the future, your family members will also be able to easily locate photos to share with their loved ones.

Is the idea of organizing your life in photos too daunting? Or maybe you just inherited a storage unit full of your great grandfather’s photo collection? We get it – these treasures can be a real bear to manage. Ask about our professional photo organizing services and we’d be happy to take this project off your hands.

 

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.

 

 

How to Prepare Printed Photos for Digitizing?

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Organizing a closet full of pictures doesn’t have to be a challenge. First, think about the best way to categorize or sort your prints – by subject, event or date – whatever method works best for you. It also helps to imagine how you would search for specific images in the future once the prints are digitized.

The video above shows you an easy way to prepare photos and memorabilia to be digitized and archived.

 

 

Professional archiving is our jam!

Is the idea of organizing your life in photos too daunting? Or maybe you just inherited a storage unit full of your great grandfather’s photo collection? We get it – these treasures can be a real bear to manage. Ask about our professional photo organizing services and we’d be happy to take this project off your hands.

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.

How to Create a Killer Slideshow Your Family Will Enjoy

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Gather your family, grab some popcorn and have a box of tissues ready. Creating a beautiful, impactful slideshow is a fun project for anyone who loves photography! But deciding which photos to include, and how to sequence pictures for maximum impact, can be a time-consuming challenge. As you choose and arrange photos for a slideshow, imagine you’re writing a story. But instead of using words to tell the story, you’re using pictures to tell your story. Look through your photo library and try to find the following eight types of pictures. As you make your selections, ask yourself, “does each of these photos work together to tell the story? So now let’s dive in and learn how to create a slideshow that will make your family cry – tears of joy!

 

  • Portraits: these pictures introduce key characters in the story. For example, be sure you include a portrait of each key family member in your album or slideshow. When your family traveled to New York City for a holiday gathering, did grandma and grandpa come along too? Then, by all means, include snapshots of their grinning faces watching the kiddos ice skate at Rockefeller Center!
  • Scene Setters: these are typically wide-angle, sweeping shots that give viewers a sense of place. For example, did you include a dramatic shot of your family trip to Niagra Falls?
  • Interaction: these photos capture the close relationships between your loved ones. Select pictures of family members sharing fun or memorable experiences. Don’t just choose posed pictures of family members standing in front of big landmarks. (Those tend to be pretty boring!) Try to find a series of candid photos of the family hanging out, adventuring and laughing! The more natural the shot, the more impact it has in your slideshow.
  • Honest Emotion: these types of photos showcase unique personalities and traits. Often, these are shots of family members reacting to something happening. Did Uncle Bob tell a hilarious joke at dinner that made your mom LOL? If you captured your mom’s expression, make sure to include it in your slideshow! It will inspire wonderful reactions from your family when they watch the finished slideshow.
  • People without People: This is my favorite type of photo to include in slideshows! These are photos of objects or details that show viewers something about the characters in the story. For example, pictures of your grandma’s childhood home help add context and emotion to your slideshow. Find a few fun ones to enhance your slideshow!
  • Transitions: these photos show characters going from one “chapter” of the story to the next. For example, you could include a snapshot of your family boating through the Hawaiian islands. Try to pick photos that show your group moving from one place to another! It helps your slideshow make sense chronologically.
  • Decisive Moment or “Hero Shot:” These pictures are often the most dramatic ones in your slideshow. It’s a type of photo that makes everyone smile because it sums up your entire vacation/trip/experience. For example, this could be a snapshot of everyone gathering around your parents cheering them on at their 50th wedding anniversary.
  • Closing Shot: A closing shot is a picture that conveys the end of the story. For example, this type of photo could show your family members walking down a path at the end of a hike, or seaside sunset at the end of a fun day.

 

Pro tip: consider dividing photos up into chapters or themes. This will make the task of sequencing much more intuitive. As you group photos together, the best sequence for maximum emotional impact will become clear. Just make sure to bring a box of Kleenex when you debut your slideshow to your family!

 

Now that you’ve learned the eight types of photos to include in an album or slideshow, you’re ready to tackle creating a slideshow for your family.

Take back your photo collection once an for all!

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This is the year you’re going to take back your photo collection

You’re going to conquer those boxes of photos before they fade away forever. You’re ready to future proof your old photo collection and organize your digital image archive, you’ve come to the right place. The right time is now. And we’re here to help (or just do it for you).

Three steps to taming the analog anarchy

1.    Reduce

The first step is to weed out what you can’t keep. Remove duplicates, damaged prints, and non-photographic memorabilia. Throw them away. If there are trophies, drawings, newspaper scraps, etc that you’re not ready to throw away, place them in a different box to go through later.

2.    Organize

Sort negatives, slides and prints into separate collections. Keep only the negatives that you’re prepared to print or scan. Keep albums that are complete and in good condition. If the inside pages are yellowing or cracking or have excess exposed adhesive, remove the prints and dispose of the empty albums.

Group prints by size and then sort chronologically. If you’ll be storing them again, you want to be able to label boxes or sections by time period. If you’ve saved negatives and slides, group them the same way, in envelopes or negative sleeves.

3.    Save

Now is the time to consider scanning prints, slides and negatives that you want to archive or share.  A good home scanner costs $200 to $800 and takes 30 to 90 seconds to scan a print, not including set up, cleaning, and post-processing like editing and saving. This is where our batch-scanning services shine. Our experts handle everything for you, often for less that it would cost to purchasing your own scanner. Either way, with the benefit of proper sorting and organization, you can now handle the scanning in manageable chunks. Be sure to save your scanned images in at least two places, one of which is in the cloud, which we’ll discuss next.

Clarifying the cloud

Where to store your digital images

Your digital photos should be organized in the same method as your hardcopies: chronologically. I prefer to name folders like this:

YYYY-MM-DD And Location or Event

They should all be stored on one drive that’s large enough to hold everything AND backed up to the cloud. For all but the most avid photographers, 1TB is adequate. That much storage costs $9.99 a month at any of the top three cloud storage services. Here’s how each one of them handles photos:

  1. iCloud® already syncs to and from all your apple devices out of the box so it’s easy to entrust with other files too. Once you turn it on, it syncs photos in the background without having to do anything, but you’ll to use Apple Photo as your gateway to get other images into and out of iCloud, especially en-masse. If you use Apple Photos and don’t mind relying on it, stick with iCloud. Otherwise consider one of the next two options.
  2. Google Drive® was once considered the android alternative to iCloud, but it’s now very friendly across all platforms, including Apple. You get 15GB of free storage and more costs about the same as iCloud. But there’s also Google Photos which wins hands down with free storage of unlimited images up to 16MP each in size. It syncs across all your devices, organizes for you and relies on Google’s great search technology to help find them later. But you can’t organize them into folders yourself. To do that, which you might need to if you’re backing up your already-organized image catalog, you’ll need to use Google Drive. Not a deal-breaker as long as can distinguish between the two and use them as a team.
  3. Dropbox® is also great across all platforms and it costs the same as iCloud and Google Drive for 1TB of storage. Dropbox lets you organize existing files any way you’d like and respects the folder structure of files you upload en masse. You can access your files adequately in a web browser but it’s really intended to be installed as a synced folder, where a copy of everything stays on your computer, taking up space. Syncing to network or external drives isn’t recommended. Still, if your photo collection is small or this is your first cloud storage, give Dropbox a try (free for 2GB)!

Taken in steps, even the most unwieldy photo collection, can be dealt with pretty painlessly. But if all or any part of this stresses you out, don’t fret. We handle all of this, very well, quite often, for people just like you. We’d love to organize, scan, archive, upload, and unlock a lifetime of memories for you and your family too!

The Gather Box, Signature Product, The Print Refinery

What is archiving and why is it so important?

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When it comes to organizing and preserving your family’s photography history, many of us struggle to get this accomplished. Whether it’s photos stuck in drawers, VHS tapes in boxes, old slide carousels or piles of home movie reels – most of us don’t even know where to begin. Time out! You do know how important preserving these memories is – don’t you? Over time, these precious mementos from our past, our parents’ past and our grandparents’ past are at risk for damage, deterioration and they are mostly likely forgotten and neglected.

What is Archiving? It’s the process of storing data and information of historical importance – and what’s more important that your own family history!?
Here’s why archiving is important:

• Protection – Getting those photos and movies out of damp basements and grungy garages ensures longevity. It also protects them from catastrophic weather or environmental damage.

• Preservation – The best way to preserve these moments and memories is through a process called digitization. The prints, slides and home movies are scanned and turned into digital files – making them accessible by today’s technology.

• Storage – Once your memorabilia is digitized, it becomes far easier to store because it takes up far less physical space. Thousands of digital files can fit on DVDs, Blu-Ray discs, USB drives and hard drives – meaning those 4 large boxes full of photographs are now on a device that can fit in the palm of your hand. Taking it a step further, you can also store those digital files in the cloud for even deeper storage and back up protection.

• Duplication/Sharing – A common problem for families is deciding who gets to keep all of that rich history, often resulting in frustration over who gets what photographs. The beauty of digitizing those files means no more arguing on the subject. Every single family can have their very own copy of the family’s memorabilia – and we think that’s pretty awesome.

• Accessibility – Once these items are safely stored on digital media, it becomes much easier to locate specific images or movies quickly. Much faster than digging through boxes in search of mom and dad’s wedding photo.

We love helping our customers get started archiving, but so many don’t even know where to begin. Fear not! We have the perfect solution to let you test the waters with archiving. We’ve developed a step by step kit that simplifies the process – it’s called The Gather Box. This take-home, DIY archiving kit simplifies the sometimes-daunting task of organizing personal effects and helps get your photo closets, drawers, garages, basements and attics in order!

You won’t believe what this box can do! Here’s how it works:
STEP 1: GATHER Purchase the box for yourself or a loved one. Inside, find instructions and tips to guide you through the sorting and gathering process.

STEP 2: FILL THE BOX Fill it with memorabilia, photos, slides and home movies, then drop it off at our store. If you have things that won’t fit in the box, bring them along so we can address those items separately.

STEP 3: MAGIC! Return to find that everything in your box has been magically transformed into digital format. Now you can relax in confidence knowing those precious relics from the past are now protected and easily accessible.

If The Gather Box sounds like the solution for you, stop by and pick one up today! www.theprintrefinery.com

#archiveitall, #lovemyPRproject, #savefamilyphotos, #theprintrefinery