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how to organize your family photographs

Today I posted an image of the 2012 yearbook I just got in for my family on Instagram (Follow Me!) and I received a ton of emails and messages so I thought I would do another post on organizing your family images for photographers and non-photographers alike!

 

1. You should always have two copies of your family photographs (the digitals) – I have mine on an external hard drive (2 tb and cost around $100) and also backed up to dropbox.com so I can access them wherever I want and if my hard drive conks out they are there for the download 🙂

2. Get your images off your camera/card/phone often-don’t leave a card in your camera for 6 months! You will never get to organize them if it gets overwhelming. I organize mine by years, months, and then events or dates within the months-name each folder something you will remember if you need to access them quickly to find something. Here is an example of mine (previous post with easier to see info…HERE):

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3. Get them OFF your computer! Its nice that we take all these images but we don’t DO anything with them. I know you can’t replace canvas’s and such every few months so what I do is a family yearbook every year. I used to scrapbook but I have no time for that and I love these more-they will stand the test of time. I organize the books the same way-one for each year, then by month within the book, and then in chronological order. I know it sounds like a lot but its really not; and just think about how you will look back on these books in 10, 20 years!

Do I order the crazy expensive books that only photographers can get? Nope! For important stuff like formal family pictures, weddings, baby books, etc., yes, but for these? Blurb.com. 12×12 square, custom satin cover, proline pearl paper, the works…is it expensive? Not for what you get! Around $230 with shipping for a 238 page book filled with literally 1k+ images.

Here is mine from last year (or maybe 2010…)-up close and personal so you can see the quality of the print/paper/cover, etc. (This year and more ideas below these millions of pictures!) Oh and my initial post on my personal blog: HERE

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So this year I also added in the kids scanned art as well as dr. well check stats (they give us a slip of paper so I just scan) so we will know how big the kids were 🙂 Oh and did I mention there is special place in the back for iPhone images that my husband and I have taken over the year too? I mean how much of our lives do we document with our phones? Also, if we go on a big family trip that gets its own book 🙂

 

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