Organizing Photos

I feel overwhelmed by photos. With the invention of digital cameras, taking photos is so easy, and there are so many! I download them all to my computer, after editing them.. (this is a pet peeve of mine, why don't people edit their pictures--take out the red eye, center them, fix the lighting etc..?)and then I have 100s of pictures on my computer. Many stay right there and play all day long as a screen saver, but I still print out many of them and then have to put them somewhere...which is mostly albums. And then they get looked at like once a year, but I cannot imagine not having photos in a hard copy.

There are many things that can be done with photos to keep the organized!

Never have them leave your computer! That is sure one option.

Upload them to the new digital picture frames, and keep scrolling through all the pictures.

Put them in albums. I just organize them chronologically. But there is also by event, or people, certainly the whole scrapbooking phenomena has taken off over the years. Just a level of commitment not for me. My albums are are black faux leather. I realized one day a couple of years back that my albums were really horrible, all just cheap things I bought over the years at the drug store, all mismatched. So I went through all the albums, taking all the pictures out, getting rid of a lot of them (even too many photos is clutter) and then redoing all the albums by date and in nice matching albums. A huge difference.)

Use frames. This can only go so far. I am not a fan of a million picture frames all over the house.

Well at least the small ones. Really nice gallery type framing, all matching, like black, can really make a wall pop.

I like to put them out sparingly. But if you love them everywhere, then please do, but make some sense of order--like all on a large bookcase, or going down a hallway wall, or following the wall up the staircase, etc..But even so, if you have tons of pictures, you just won't be able to frame them all. Pottery Barn has great frames.

Photo boxes are another great way to put them away. I like albums better, they seem more attractive to me, like a book, but these boxes are a great organization tool and keep things together easily.

Photo books. These are pretty cool. I have seen with Shutterfly, how you can send them photos and they will create a hard cover book for you...I think I need to try this. You can send children's artwork too--I love that idea!! No more trying to find room all over the refrigerator (which I don't like anyhow..)

Pictures are a tremendous part of our legacy and bring such joy in life and are a gift to leave behind. Managing them can be something of a chore, but like everything else, once you get in under control, you will be glad you did.