Overcoming Digital Photo Overwhelm Part 3

Why do we need to overcome your photo overwhelm?

We live in a time when more photos are taken than ever before in history and yet fewer photos are printed or saved in an easily accessible way.

We have dozens…hundreds of images relating to individual events but in reality we only need a handful of those images to tell our story of the experience.

We do not have systems in place to store our photos together, to delete many, to keep the best and most relevant.

Let me help you create a bank of well curated photos that make it easy for you to choose what to print for your albums.

In Week One we gathered images

If you missed my live video you can read a recap here.  
The goal is to deal with a manageable number of images at one time.  
Your challenge was to gather and delete.

Last week we labelled our images

If you missed that post you can read it here.  
Labelling with generic names followed by detail makes it easier to search for specific images.  
Your challenge was to rename your test batch of photos and delete a few more.

This week we decide which photos to print

The safest place for a photo is still in a printed format.

I believe the most pleasurable way to enjoy photo viewing is sensory – flipping through a pile of photos; turning the pages of an album or standing close to an image mounted on the wall, enjoying the sounds and smells of the room it occupies. 

I encourage you to print your photos and tell the story that goes with them.  I make traditional scrapbooks and will focus on the process I use to select images for them but the same steps can be applied when choosing images for digitally created photo books and wall art.

What do you plan to do with your photos?

Before embarking on the next step, it’s important to decide what you plan to do with your photos.  How many images do you want to print?  Do you want to share all the details of an experience or just the highlights?  Which photos are your ‘must haves’?

One of the main reasons we feel overwhelmed by our digital images is that we feel a need to do something with ALL the good ones. I’m here to tell you that is just not so.  There are not enough days in our lives to keep up with scrapbooking all the photos we take.  It’s time to get really clear about your purpose.

In week one of this course I asked the Facebook event group why they take photos.  The answer was, “To remember”.  Think about what you want to remember the most – that will help you decide which photos you want to print.  Is it the emotion of the day? Is it the amazing sights you saw? Is it the story of growth? Is it progress made on a project?

Your reason to print will vary with each experience you photograph. As the reason varies, so does the quantity of images you require.  Be mindful of this as you follow the next steps in our process.

Identify images you wish to print

Let’s look at the folder you have been working on over the past 2 weeks. By now you have reduced the number of images by at least half.  In my sample I ended up with 12 good quality images I felt told the story well.  I have several choices for what I do with them:

• Print just one really great photo of Mandy to frame as a Christmas gift or use as a single photo on a scrapbook page alongside the story of the event. 
• Print my 6-8 absolute favourites to make a double page layout. 
• Print all 12 and make 2 layouts OR include pocket protectors in the design of one layout
• Make a mini album of just this event.

All these options are great.  All these options are ‘right’.  All these options will result in you holding one or more images that help you to remember. The point is, you need to make the choice and then print them.

Close To My Heart offer many different scrapbook albums.  Take a look through my shop to see what will suit your needs best.  Look for the following categories:

• Story by Stacy (4” x 4” and 6” x 6”)
• Mini albums (6” x 8”)
• Albums (12” x12”)

Create a system to identify images you wish to print

If you are using the generic folder system on your computer you have a couple of options to do this.  One option is to highlight all the images you wish to print and drag them to a “Need to Print” Folder.  Another option is to add a ‘P’ to the end of the file name so you will know later which images you have already printed.

If you are using a system that allows you to tag photos and sort by tags, simply create a “Need to Print” and an “Already Printed” tag.

I use a program called Historian on my Windows computer.  This program allows me to store, curate and edit my photos in the one place.  Two features I love are the ability to star rate my photos and the option to tag images as “Need to Print” and “Already Printed”.  I find this invaluable as rating the images helps me see which ones are most important to me and keeping track of ones I’ve already printed makes life easier. 

You can download the software for a free trial here https://www.forever.com/historian  I am not a rep for this company, I just love the software.  If you need someone to help you with details search the website for a Forever Ambassador in your area. 

Work with manageable portions

Your challenge this week is to look through the photos you curated last week, decide what you want to do with them and select the ones you will print.  It’s OK to print more than you use.  Prints are cheap and sometimes we need to hold the printed image to know if it is a ‘keeper’.

Remember, you are working with one recent event or a recent, specific time period – NOT all your digital images.