Although my digital photos are already organized, I'm always interested in tips and INSPIRATION for getting and staying organized. The step-by-step approach in this event was great for reviewing my current digital photo storage and workflow and helped me identify a few things I need to tweak in my process.
First, I took time to re-name my folders. I keep my photos in yearly folders then monthly folders then event folders (if needed). However, some of the folders had the year first, then the month, others had the month first then the year. This is a very small thing, however it makes me immensely happy to know they are all now named consistently now!
The second issue, which I will be working more on in the coming weeks, are the scanned and digital photos from Mama. As Mama has been scrapbooking and organizing photos over the past couple of years, she has scanned many older photos. She recently brought me a flash drive with these photos, and I uploaded them to a folder on my computer. Here's a partial look at the files I received.
Most of these folders contain only a few photos each as whatever software she was using created a new folder for each scan session. In addition, the folder names do not necessarily indicate what's actually in that folder. The photos range in date from the 1940s to last month! However, I am thrilled to have these photos! I used one of the pages in the Photo Crush workbook to come up with folder names that will help me work through these photos and get them organized so that I can enjoy them.
The third and final issue I'd like to address is automated backup for all my files (not just photos). I do back up our computers each month to an external hard drive, and I have my highlight photos uploaded to Shutterfly as an offsite backup. However, I need to research and decide on a better system of backup that will be automatic and more efficient.
I'm very glad I participated in the Photo Crush event as it provided INSPIRATION for getting my folders named consistently, for making a start on organizing Mama's photos, and for thinking about how I want to restructure my backup system.
Did you participate in this event? What do you use for backing up your photos and other files?
Today I'm linking up with Cate and her challenge to blog every day in May.
I signed up for this too but have not had a chance to review the lessons. Currently I don't have an off-site photo back up and probably will not use one. I have my photos on an EHD, back up to another EHD each time I close the program, once a month make a copy to my hubby's computer and once a year, back them up to an EHD that I store at my moms. Now should there be a natural disaster, I am SOL with my photos but having 4 harddrives crash at once are unlikely. Not sure I buy into online storage yet. Call me old fashion but I just don't know if I can trust them having all my stuff.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, loving all you posts this month. Thanks for sharing.
I passed on this one; too many other burning issues, and my photos are well organized in Lightroom. Everything on my computer gets backed up automatically by Time Machine. We also have another automatic backup, Backblaze, but it's pretty slow. I'm behind in uploading albums to Smug Mug, but I also do that to share photos with family, and it's another form of back-up as well.
ReplyDeleteI signed up, but still haven't started yet....though my digital storage isn't too badly organised.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds as if you received some real treasure with those photos..what a collection: you could easily spend the rest of the week just browsing! Have a good one
ReplyDeleteJust last week my EHD has had some connection issues, so I can see cloud storage in my future. Thanks for this great review, I haven't finished working through the class yet, so it's nice to know it is handy to get done.
ReplyDeleteI haven't gotten to the weekend classes yet but did manage to keep up through Day 5 and was happy to discover that my set-up is pretty good as is. I back up my EHD via BackBlaze. The initial upload takes forever (well I had a lot of data!) but after that it keeps things updated in the background. I've been very happy with the price and the service.
ReplyDeleteI use Flickr as my automated offsite back up - it will keep an eye on one folder and upload anything added to it.
ReplyDeleteWe have a mac so use Time Machine as an automated back up that is on site.