Tutorial of the Week

Welcome to Part 2 of getting your photos organized for the new year! Last week I showed everyone how I organize my photos, hopefully that inspired you to start sorting through your digital photos. Remember that it really doesn't matter what system you use as long as it works for you & that you are consistent with the sorting. This week is going to be a little short as the hard work will be next week.

Now that you've gotten a few folders set up & sorted, we need to talk about what you need to get rid of. Yup, we're going to get rid of pictures. I know that is a little nerve-wracking but really, how many copies of the same shot of Fido do you need? One feature I love to use on my camera is the rapid fire & I'll sometimes end up with a few hundred photos at the end of the day. Taking the time now to sort photos will really help you out in the future.

Chuck all those photos that are beyond hopelessly blurry, any that you really didn't mean to take & those ones that have a close of up your kid's nose. Unless that's what you were going for! Got ten shorts from that recent family photo session? Tossing all but the best one will prevent you from doing a mad search during a speed scrap. Go through that miscellaneous folder & get those photos culled & into the right folder.

One extra step I like to do when I've been given photos taken by other people ['cause I'm a total organizational nut] is to put all the photos in chronological order by renaming a those bonus photos. For example, at the boys' birthday party I got photos from the grandparents & cousins that didn't conform to the naming convention of my camera. Once I got all the photos culled, I took the grandparent pictures & renamed them to match my files so when the photos were dropped into the folder, they would be in a close to chronological order as possible.

If you take a look at my file below, in the third row you'll see that the file names go from IMG_9923 which was taken by me to IMG_9924_01 which is where the grandparents & cousins took over the taking of pictures. I figured out what the rough order was & then renamed them so that when I sorted by name, everything would be in the correct order. You'll also see in the second row of photos how the image names get higher very quickly, that's a time I took about 30 pictures & only kept the best ones of my cousin spinning the kids around on their backs. Don't ask why they found that so much fun, I don't get it either but they loved it.


I know this method is not for everyone but I love doing it to keep things in the right order. I'm a little too organized sometimes.

Once you've gotten the pictures culled, it will be time to rename everything so that you'll be able to find the pictures easily in the future. But that's going to take a little more work so come back next week & I'll tell you how to rename several hundred pictures at once!