How To Organize Your Digital Photos

Posted by Michelle Harrington on Oct 18th, 2009 | 3 comments

I’ve had a few people ask me recently, how I keep my digital photographs organized.  Here’s how I do it and some tips and resources that might help you get organized…

First, there are free and low-cost image organizers available,  Click here to see 2009 reviews of the best image organizers.  If you already have an image organizer but aren’t really sure how to use it, you can use YouTube.com as a resource to search for help and how to videos with whatever image organizer you end up using.  While it’s not essential to have any of these programs they do make it easy to keep your photos organized, make photo corrections, and send your photos via email.

That said, currently I am not using any software to manage my photos – as I choose to do it manually.  I upload my photos using the HP software that shipped with my printer (because it has a digital image card reader built in).   If you do not have any digital image software installed you can connect your camera to your PC and then look for the “scanner and camera” icon in the Control Panel to use the default upload wizard to get your digital photos to your computer.

Upload to a Folder

One of the first and most important things to remember when you transfer your photos from your camera to your computer, is to immediately put them into a folder on your hard drive — not just in “My Pictures”, but create a subfolder by date or event name or both.  You should have this option when you connect your camera to your computer – there should be a place to specify where you want the photos to go and create a new folder.

Create Sub Folders for Each Year

I made a folder on my hard drive (C:) called “My Photos”.  I then created individual folders for each year (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, etc.) within “My Photos” folder.    Before I upload a new batch of photos from my digital camera,  I create a new folder within the appropriate year with a descriptive name of the event or the month of the photos taken.  This way when the photo transfer wizard gets going I just point to the new folder that I have just created.  You can also choose to use the reverse date format e.g. 2009-08-22 for your folder names, which will list chronologically in order within your “My Photos” or “My Pictures” folder.

Organize Your Old Photos

If you already have photos dumped into your “My Pictures” folder, then grab some coffee and make some time to create subfolders as described above, and sort your photos into the appropriate folder.  This may take some time, but it will be worth it!   You can use the “drag and drop” method once you’ve created your new folders.  If you need a little more visual help, visit this YouTube.com video on how to set up your folders.

Back Up Your Photo Folders

I regularly back up my photos folders (usually a year at a time) to either a CD or DVD for safe keeping.  Nothing is worse than having a hard drive crash and losing all of your pictures.  I keep my digital photo back up CD’s and DVD’s in a shoebox, labeled with the year, so if I ever need to access the images, I can find them easily.

Photos for Printing

I like to print hard copies of my favorite photos so I created a “Photos to Print” folder on my desktop.  Anytime I upload a new set of photos to my computer, I go through and choose the ones I want to print (CTL +Click on the image) to select multiple images and then I COPY those images into the “Photos to Print” folder.  Then once a month or so I upload my “photos to print” to my preferred online photo developer/printer.  Once I’ve placed my online order for printing of those photos I delete the photos in my “photos to print” folder and it’s ready to use the next time I have a batch of photos to print.

Create Keepsakes & Gifts with Your Photos

If you’d like to create a keepsake book or gift using your photos be sure to check out www.PhotoWorks.com – it’s one of my favorites and it’s super easy to use.

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Author | Michelle Harrington of Emagine Web Marketing
Michelle is a web development and internet marketing professional dedicated to helping small businesses in Hawaii achieve success online. Michelle provides free advice, tips and how to's on the Small Business Internet Marketing Blog.

3 Responses

1. Christopher Walker says:

   November 17, 2009 at 3:30 pm

   This is exactly how I have my photographs organized. I made a folder called ‘My Photographs’ (which is divided into years and months) to store all my personal photos in. All the pictures i’ve saved from the internet I keep in the Windows ‘My Pictures’ folder. In addition to that, I use Windows Photo Gallery to view and tag them. After they are all tagged, it makes finding any picture a breeze, especially when you have a few thousand! It’s a good habit to organize them and tag them as soon as you upload them to your computer from your camera.
2. Digital Photography Class says:

   April 21, 2010 at 12:33 pm

   Great article, well written….excellent stuff…cool blog!!! Keep up the good work.
3. Photographic Studio Equipment says:

   April 22, 2010 at 5:47 am

   This is why I like staying in touch with my best friend…google. Is because of it I find quality blogs with the info that I need. Thanx for sharing these info with us. Keep up the good work…