Organizing Your Family Photos

Whether you are planning on starting a scrapbook project or simply just want to organize your family photos, here are some simple tips to get you started.

Most people are good at taking lots of pictures of their family, the kids and all the vacations and holidays but many of us don’t do well with organizing our photos. Here are some ideas for not only organizing your photos but also making sure they are stored safely so that they are not lost.

Organize Your Digital Photos

It is very common for families to have a digital camera that they take pictures with. Since the photos are digital they are often just downloaded from the camera to your family computer and rarely printed out. One very easy way to keep track of all your digital photos and keep them safe is to purchase a memory stick and store them on that.

A good way to manage all your photos is to create a file folder and then organize your photos in sub-folders by date. You can also create sub-folders for your photos with special names such as the vacation place with the date or special events such as weddings and graduation. A great benefit to having your digital photos on a memory stick is that you can then purchase a digital photo frame and have a loop of different photos displayed.

Online Photo Storage

There are a number of websites that offer online photo storage such as Flickr or Photobucket. These websites allow you to upload your photos and share them with family and friends online, as well as organize and edit your photos. You may want to even consider a combination of using your own memory stick and an online storage system.

Scrapbooks and Photo Albums

Scrapbooks are a wonderful way to store your family photos and a beautiful way to display them. A scrapbook is not the same as a photo album in the sense that you typically only have one to three photos per page because you are creating a scene on each page of your scrapbook.

So, while a scrapbook will display your pictures it certainly is not an option for organizing all of your photos. Photo albums are no longer as common as they once were and this may not be the best method of organizing and keeping your photos safe as they do take up quite a bit of space and the photos could be easily damaged.

Organizing Older Photos that are Not Digital

Most of us still have a large amount of older photos that are not digital. A good idea with these photos especially if you no longer have the negatives is to scan them to a digital photo and then you can store them along with your other digital photos. Many home printers come with a scanner feature. You can keep all of your non-digital pictures in photo boxes. Store your photos in chronological order so that you can find them easily when you do sit down to start a scrapbook project.

Our family pictures are such a wonderful way to keep great memories alive, so keep them stored in a safe place where they can be preserved and enjoyed.

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