“It’s good to have a plan” that is a phrase that echoes around our house quite often and especially during busy times of the year. We plan for all sorts of things, grocery shopping, vacations, car maintenance, weather…. Let’s make a plan for what to do with your photos! In a perfect world, I would be practicing the Daily Delete every day or so. In addition, I do my main photo management work on or around the first weekend of the month (instead of tying myself to the “1st” day of the month).
Everyone’s photo workflow will look different depending on where your photos are, where they are going (or staying), how many you have and how in-depth your process is… having a super simple process is a-ok!! You need to do what works with you and your photos. Here’s an idea of what your monthly photo maintenance might look like…
#1 Delete the Duds!
If you are not practicing the Daily Delete, now is the time to delete the duds from your camera roll. For tips on what photos to let go of, check out my post on The Daily Delete. I just did a quick run-through of my August 2022 photos from my camera roll. I moved 51 photos to a folder for business items, and deleted 130 which is 42% of the total. I went on 3 trips in August including a big family trip to St John just last week. I’m sure I’ll be able to delete more photos after I have documented my travels !
#2 Move screenshots to the Notes App or a folder
Did you know you can take photos directly in the Apple Notes app OR move photos off your camera roll and into a note? It’s perfect for things you don’t want to forget but don’t need cluttering up your camera roll. I also keep folders of images on my hard drive for business-related photos so they don’t reside in my general camera roll.
#3 Pick your favorites
I like to “favorite” my photos in Apple Photos or assign a star rating in Lightroom Classic. I do this fairly quickly and instinctively and it helps me to locate the best of the best for a project. I took 30 photos from a weekend visit to a friend in Wisconsin and designated 10 of them as favorites. Will I delete the other 20? Maybe. For now I’ve identified the ones I definitely want to include in a photo book or album
#4 Edit and Keyword/Tag
This one is “extra credit” and it will depend on your workflow, how much time you’ve allotted and how deep you want to go into organizing your photos. If you know you are going to edit (crop, straighten, color edit etc…) a photo, now might be a great time to do that within your photo software so you don’t have to go back through later. Similarly if you use keywords or tags, it’s very quick to make a pass and assign keywords or tags to a months worth of photos rather than waiting until the end of the year.
#5 Share with family & friends
Don’t forget to share your images and enjoy them! We can share photos remotely to my mother-in-laws Nixplay photo frame (note to self…add cute vacation photos to her frame!) as well as our Nixplay frames around the house. Our family also shares a SmugMug account, which I use to gather everyone’s vacation photos, share slideshows and view all the content of our account on our family room TV with the SmugMug app on our Firestick! The college students have been sharing trip photos on Snapchat with their friends (of course) and us old folks have shared some images on Facebook. There will also be a photo book made of our USVI adventures (hmmmm maybe that is the family Christmas present this year??!) I am also planning to use some images in a family travels project to come.
ENJOY your photos!! Live with them, make books, stream them on your TV, print them out and hang them on the walls! Following a few simple steps to keep your camera roll and your photos under control every month will help you conquer your photo overwhelm and result in a neat organized photo library that will be a joy to come back to again and again!
Overwhelmed? Modern Memorykeeper Can Help!
Do you want organized photos and don’t know where to start? Did you used to have a plan for your photos and you’ve fallen off track? Need some help tweaking your workflow? Just want someone else to take this project over for you?? I can help you with all of these things! I would love to help you preserve your memories and tell your stories, it’s what I love to do! Click the “schedule time with me” button below and let’s get started organizing your photos!
Professional Photo Organizing with Modern Memorykeeper, LLC. 