What tips do you have for organizing your photos? If you want to know what files to create to keep your documents and photos organized, check out this video: How to Organize Digital Files for Genealogy Research ruclips.net/video/dfR7ivYASyY/видео.html
I did this and it took me 7 years. I got all the old photographs (hard copies) and digitized them. Then got consolidated all the photographs on the hard drives and then uploaded them upto flickr. I now have over 60,000 online but properly stored. So, I have all my organised into years and decades. Now, when I take a photograph with my phone, I drop them into a monthly folder in my phone and then upload them to flickr.
@@riboid as a Certified Photo Organizer, I recommend you leave a sheet of paper with your will that has your flkr account password and if you pay for storage the credit card used on that account. Otherwise, they may close the cc account before changing the cc on your photo account first. I hope that helps.
Don’t forget to scan the reverse or back side of photos - that’s the place where people most often write identifying comments and other useful information. When I have something with writing on the back I label both images with the same number and just add ‘rev’ to the photo label so the computer will automatically store them together.
@@cathybauer4412 yes you could, but I use letters to denote when I edit photos, so that wouldn’t work for me. Just my practice though, that I’ve been doing for decades. Also I (or anyone else looking) would have to remember what the a and b means - and that’s getting harder these days 😫. You could also use ‘back’ which would be easier to understand, but I started using ‘rev’ because it seemed to be the industry standard at the time so I’m sort of stuck with it. These days, now the length of the file name is virtually unlimited, I’m using the file names to store more and more information so I can see it at a glance. It has to be EXACTLY the same though for the front and the back for the computer to store them together. I sometimes use metadata too to add really important information because that can never be lost, but it’s too time consuming for most things and most people wouldn’t know to look there. Always something new to learn - and then remember to actually do it before getting sidetracked again! Sigh.
@@marilyncarey7957 Definitely use what's working for you. I would say that to goes to everyone. Depending on where you are inserting the metadata (Google Photos, Shutterfly) the metadata will not come down from those cloud services. If you are entering on your computer or FOREVER that will not be an issue.
Great methods and tips. One great thing is also to use the Spot Healing Brush Tool in Photoshop and then colorize them with MyHeritage. Will make 100-year-old photos look like if they were shot yesterday.
I like the Photoshop Tool. I use Photoshop Elements and the process is the same. For folks who haven't used MyHeritage photo coloring, here's a link to more information ruclips.net/video/Gako4ZN_RSE/видео.html
I ended up doing this using an iPhone 12 Pro. Some photos came out even better than the original and they seem to be preserved perfectly. Honestly it was so much faster than dealing with scanning and editing software in the computer and the format didn’t change. This was my method: 1. camera shot from above with white paper background all photos 2. crop and edit orientation of each photo in the phone 3. airdrop the photos to the computer and organize by folder 4. upload each folder to your sharing app of choice into the respective album. I used Google Photos and potentially may use iCloud as well
@@lindaj5492 I usually edit them within the photo app on my phone (iPhone in this instance) before I transfer them to my computer. Even with Photoshop app on my phone I feel it's a way faster editing process and you can use your hands for any quick crops.
About a year ago, I started to sort and get rid of pile of old family photos. But I am glad, I kept my get rid of pile because younger cousin started asking for photos that they may have been in on a vacation trip, family BBQ, etc. So, I am taking the long road of getting rid pile.
My question is about organizing digital pictures. Recently, I have been getting pictures from family members. I am trying to note who is in the picture, where it was taken, and when. How do I make these notes easily accessible for digital copies? It’s not like you can write on the back of the picture. I am already trying to sort them by surname on the computer. I appreciate any suggestions. Thank you. Love your videos!
There isn't an easy way to attach the content to "the back of a photo" digitally as you mentioned. There are a few strategies to try. 1. Create a book that has captions. (This can be a photo book or a family history research book. The point is record the information that might appear on the back of the photo in a published book. The book can the live in a digital and/or physical form and the captions stay with the photos. 2. Include some of the information in the Meta Data of the image. Unfortunately the meta data doesn't transfer well between Apple and PC computers. Thus I revert back to tip #1. 3. Upload videos of deceased individuals to FamilySearch family tree. Then you can tag everyone in the photos and record the captions in the 'description' section of the memories gallery.
JPG images have a standard metadata section called IPTC fields. In Windows they are just called tags. On MacOS Photos, they are called Keywords. You can test if these will carry from one OS to the other by checking edits on a different computer yourself, or sharing the file via sharing service like dropbox so a friend or family can try it on their computer with different OS. (some file sharing methods will compress your original images to a lower quality and strip this metadata)
you can do this in Google Photos and add a note to each photo if you want. If you are sharing on Facebook you can do this per photo/post as well and just save under one album. You can also add notes in Google Drive if you prefer to keep it all private. I believe Google Photos would be your best option though for viewing / sharing
Great tips! I am in the process of this right now. I have my Dad's parents pictures and they date from the late 1800's to the 2000's. I have them in about 4 or 5 photo boxes at the moment. I have contemplated doing a photo book but I think I will probably have to do three, one of my grandfather as a child with his family, one of my grandmother as a child with her family and then one of my grandparents meeting, marriage, WW2, their kids and so on. Do you have any recommendations? I had thought of doing one big book with all of the family but there are so many pictures I don't think it will be possible. Thanks in advance.
I recommend you do the separate books. For one, the costs will be lower. For another, a large book can be overwhelming. I use Mixbooks or Shutterfly depending on who has the better sale.
Surely someone makes an app that allows me to call up a digital image, add a caption, time place who where, that doesn’t cover any of the image. Tell me where I can find it.
It all depends on where you want to store your photos. You can use the FamilySearch Memory app for family history pictures play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.familysearch.mobile.memories&hl=en_US&gl=US I use Photoshop Elements to do what you want but it's not really an app on my desktop. www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-elements.html
Love your videos, thank you so much for the help! I have scanned all of my old family photos with a plustex ePhoto and have been working on organizing them by year in folders on my hard drive. Many had info written on the back but many didn't. I kept the album order and all of the jpeg files are named for their album and numbered in order. I have a few relatives still alive who could help give more details and identify people in the photos but we don't live close. I would like to upload them to the internet in a way that anyone I share them with could view and add info to help me but I'm trying to choose one good method that technologically challenged / (old people) could easily find and navigate. It would be great if I could roll the mouse over a face and the name would pop up after I've tagged it of course. I've considered Facebook and Google Photos but I'm finding restrictions I don't like. I'm trying to avoid uploading them a bunch of times in different ways and just do it right the first time but I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever find the perfect solution. I'd even be happy to pay for something if it fit the bill. I know you mentioned FamilySearch so I'll look into that but if there's anything else you could suggest it would be greatly appreciated! Thank you
Honestly, I don't have a great recommendation for your situation. You've mentioned Facebook groups, Google Drive (Photos) and FamilySearch. Those are the ones I would recommend but not everyone will be able to use them (unless they're willing to learn).
Random idea... perhaps have a group video chat with visual element. You can share a photo and ask folks to share what they remember. You can often record the sessions so you can stay focused on the conversation. It's a random idea, like I said.
Ann... I just learned about this! I though FlipPal was still useful. That's why I didn't add a link. The Doxie Flip looks very similar. I'll add a link and update the description. www.getdoxie.com/product/flip
If I have negatives and prints from them, I always scan the negatives, not the print. The resulting scan has FAR more detail than scanned prints. I am lucky enough to have negatives dating back to the 1940s and their scans put anything on photo paper to shame. Maybe a poster sized print could come close, but then it wouldn't fit on my scanner.
If I had negatives and a light board, I would go with your suggestion. The problem is that few people have those two items to make digital prints for. But I'm glad you mentioned it for those who do have them.
A couple of people have told me that I should use my iPhone to photograph old photo prints, rather than scanning them. What’s the advantage? Or disadvantage?
Advantage - portable. Disadvantage - so many image errors can creep into the process. If I'm traveling and visiting a relative, I will use an App. If I have the ability to use a scanner, I will always prefer that. Also, you can scan images at higher resolutions on with a scanner which can give you more benefits when either trying to increase the image print size or if you need to do any touch up work.
I can related in more ways that one. I did have a break through with solving one mystery woman. You can read about that here. blog.familyhistoryfanatics.com/combined-photo-collection-solves-mystery If you have the time and energy, start asking relatives and family friends if they recognize folks in the pictures. You can use Facebook to share the photos, emails, or visits (well, when quarantine ends). At some point, you might run out of folks who can help you identify the individuals. When you reach that point, you have to decide if the photo is worth keeping or not. That's a discussion for another day.
if you have no idea what the time-frame could be, keep the sets grouped by box or by album, scan them with an average-quality fast scanner, or even just rapid whole-page snapshots with your phone, and share them as sets online, and ask family to comment. You can even set up slideshow sessions when you meet up with family, and record a video with your phone while people point out who/what/where the photo was about. You might even get awesome stories from elder relatives. Then when you get home, use that slideshow session recording to add the details to the photos (both digital and on the backs of the originals), and organize them accordingly.
Go through your photos and see what grabs you. If you digitize the photos, you can make a number of themes. Find one theme that will motivate you - Christmases through the years, our homes. My parents, etc. Make one and you'll be surprised how this will help you.
Same here! Been feeling muddled, get distracted / diverted, and paralysed by indecision 🙄But I found the answer to your question helpful: basically, pick just one criterion and get started!
We presently have technology that uses AI to restore distorted photos quite well and this technology will only get better as time passes. Unless a photo is so horribly damaged that a scanner couldn't possibly pick up any data from it, I'd pass on throwing out the photos you suggest ditching.
Feel free to pass on the blurry and other such photos. I will still recommend downsizing them since the AI is an artistic interpretation. I've had this discussion with photo restoration artists, and they keep pointing out that whether a human or a computer restores a photo, it's not always accurate. Additionally, many people these days have massive photo collections and descendants who struggle with overwhelm when inheriting them. If we can reduce the photos to the genealogically significant and personal history storytelling photos - rather than every photo in the collection, we increase the chances that the collections will be treasured and not tossed.
I have tried so many times to organize my photos by my younger to older yrs. By each child bilateral I've had 3 so how do you do that when all3 children are in so many pictures?? It doesn't work and will make your brain short out! 😂
GREAT QUESTION. I tend to keep photos of families together when they lived together. For instance, before my mother married, her photos and all her siblings are in the folder of her parents Lewis and Louis. When my mother married my father, then their folder was created - Penny and Bob. My photos are all in Penny and Bob's folder until I married Andy. From that point forward Andy and I are in a folder of our own. Now... what do you do about family vacations? Well, that can get tricky but I tend to put family vacation photos in the folder of the person taking the photo. But I can make allowances if there is something significant. For instance, if my kids and I go to my cousin's wedding. Then the photos are really housed in my cousin's folder and we 'tag along'. Now... how do you remember where everything is? That's when tagging using a program like Photoshop Elements or Google Photos comes in handy.
What tips do you have for organizing your photos? If you want to know what files to create to keep your documents and photos organized, check out this video: How to Organize Digital Files for Genealogy Research ruclips.net/video/dfR7ivYASyY/видео.html
I did this and it took me 7 years. I got all the old photographs (hard copies) and digitized them. Then got consolidated all the photographs on the hard drives and then uploaded them upto flickr. I now have over 60,000 online but properly stored. So, I have all my organised into years and decades. Now, when I take a photograph with my phone, I drop them into a monthly folder in my phone and then upload them to flickr.
That is a LOT of photographs. Good job.
@@FamilyHistoryFanatics Thanks. Just need my kids to take up the mantle when I dissolve into the earth. Thats the hard bit.
@@riboid as a Certified Photo Organizer, I recommend you leave a sheet of paper with your will that has your flkr account password and if you pay for storage the credit card used on that account. Otherwise, they may close the cc account before changing the cc on your photo account first. I hope that helps.
Thanks for the great advice. Really useful.
My pleasure. Glad you like it.
Don’t forget to scan the reverse or back side of photos - that’s the place where people most often write identifying comments and other useful information. When I have something with writing on the back I label both images with the same number and just add ‘rev’ to the photo label so the computer will automatically store them together.
Great tip! Thanks for sharing and watching.
You can also add _a and _b to the file name for front and back.
@@cathybauer4412 yes you could, but I use letters to denote when I edit photos, so that wouldn’t work for me. Just my practice though, that I’ve been doing for decades. Also I (or anyone else looking) would have to remember what the a and b means - and that’s getting harder these days 😫. You could also use ‘back’ which would be easier to understand, but I started using ‘rev’ because it seemed to be the industry standard at the time so I’m sort of stuck with it. These days, now the length of the file name is virtually unlimited, I’m using the file names to store more and more information so I can see it at a glance. It has to be EXACTLY the same though for the front and the back for the computer to store them together. I sometimes use metadata too to add really important information because that can never be lost, but it’s too time consuming for most things and most people wouldn’t know to look there. Always something new to learn - and then remember to actually do it before getting sidetracked again! Sigh.
@@marilyncarey7957 Definitely use what's working for you. I would say that to goes to everyone. Depending on where you are inserting the metadata (Google Photos, Shutterfly) the metadata will not come down from those cloud services. If you are entering on your computer or FOREVER that will not be an issue.
Great methods and tips. One great thing is also to use the Spot Healing Brush Tool in Photoshop and then colorize them with MyHeritage. Will make 100-year-old photos look like if they were shot yesterday.
I like the Photoshop Tool. I use Photoshop Elements and the process is the same. For folks who haven't used MyHeritage photo coloring, here's a link to more information ruclips.net/video/Gako4ZN_RSE/видео.html
!!!! Thank YOU for this info. Your ideas are just what I was looking for as I start putting together my life's photos in order.
You are so welcome!
I ended up doing this using an iPhone 12 Pro. Some photos came out even better than the original and they seem to be preserved perfectly. Honestly it was so much faster than dealing with scanning and editing software in the computer and the format didn’t change. This was my method:
1. camera shot from above with white paper background all photos
2. crop and edit orientation of each photo in the phone
3. airdrop the photos to the computer and organize by folder
4. upload each folder to your sharing app of choice into the respective album. I used Google Photos and potentially may use iCloud as well
Sweet. That's a great approach. Thanks for sharing.
It is really amazing how well that works. The first time I did that, I considered myself an outlaw.
Thanks! Just posted a question about using phone instead of scanner! If you Photoshop them, do you do it after transfer to computer?
@@lindaj5492 I usually edit them within the photo app on my phone (iPhone in this instance) before I transfer them to my computer. Even with Photoshop app on my phone I feel it's a way faster editing process and you can use your hands for any quick crops.
About a year ago, I started to sort and get rid of pile of old family photos. But I am glad, I kept my get rid of pile because younger cousin started asking for photos that they may have been in on a vacation trip, family BBQ, etc. So, I am taking the long road of getting rid pile.
No worries. Glad you had a successful family connection moment. Yay!
My question is about organizing digital pictures. Recently, I have been getting pictures from family members. I am trying to note who is in the picture, where it was taken, and when. How do I make these notes easily accessible for digital copies? It’s not like you can write on the back of the picture. I am already trying to sort them by surname on the computer. I appreciate any suggestions. Thank you. Love your videos!
There isn't an easy way to attach the content to "the back of a photo" digitally as you mentioned. There are a few strategies to try.
1. Create a book that has captions. (This can be a photo book or a family history research book. The point is record the information that might appear on the back of the photo in a published book. The book can the live in a digital and/or physical form and the captions stay with the photos.
2. Include some of the information in the Meta Data of the image. Unfortunately the meta data doesn't transfer well between Apple and PC computers. Thus I revert back to tip #1.
3. Upload videos of deceased individuals to FamilySearch family tree. Then you can tag everyone in the photos and record the captions in the 'description' section of the memories gallery.
Thank you!
JPG images have a standard metadata section called IPTC fields. In Windows they are just called tags. On MacOS Photos, they are called Keywords. You can test if these will carry from one OS to the other by checking edits on a different computer yourself, or sharing the file via sharing service like dropbox so a friend or family can try it on their computer with different OS. (some file sharing methods will compress your original images to a lower quality and strip this metadata)
you can do this in Google Photos and add a note to each photo if you want. If you are sharing on Facebook you can do this per photo/post as well and just save under one album. You can also add notes in Google Drive if you prefer to keep it all private. I believe Google Photos would be your best option though for viewing / sharing
I can’t find the JoyFlips app, can you help me with more info or a link!
Great tips! I am in the process of this right now. I have my Dad's parents pictures and they date from the late 1800's to the 2000's. I have them in about 4 or 5 photo boxes at the moment. I have contemplated doing a photo book but I think I will probably have to do three, one of my grandfather as a child with his family, one of my grandmother as a child with her family and then one of my grandparents meeting, marriage, WW2, their kids and so on. Do you have any recommendations? I had thought of doing one big book with all of the family but there are so many pictures I don't think it will be possible. Thanks in advance.
I recommend you do the separate books. For one, the costs will be lower. For another, a large book can be overwhelming. I use Mixbooks or Shutterfly depending on who has the better sale.
Surely someone makes an app that allows me to call up a digital image, add a caption, time place who where, that doesn’t cover any of the image.
Tell me where I can find it.
It all depends on where you want to store your photos. You can use the FamilySearch Memory app for family history pictures play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.familysearch.mobile.memories&hl=en_US&gl=US
I use Photoshop Elements to do what you want but it's not really an app on my desktop. www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-elements.html
Love your videos, thank you so much for the help! I have scanned all of my old family photos with a plustex ePhoto and have been working on organizing them by year in folders on my hard drive. Many had info written on the back but many didn't. I kept the album order and all of the jpeg files are named for their album and numbered in order. I have a few relatives still alive who could help give more details and identify people in the photos but we don't live close. I would like to upload them to the internet in a way that anyone I share them with could view and add info to help me but I'm trying to choose one good method that technologically challenged / (old people) could easily find and navigate. It would be great if I could roll the mouse over a face and the name would pop up after I've tagged it of course. I've considered Facebook and Google Photos but I'm finding restrictions I don't like. I'm trying to avoid uploading them a bunch of times in different ways and just do it right the first time but I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever find the perfect solution. I'd even be happy to pay for something if it fit the bill. I know you mentioned FamilySearch so I'll look into that but if there's anything else you could suggest it would be greatly appreciated! Thank you
Honestly, I don't have a great recommendation for your situation. You've mentioned Facebook groups, Google Drive (Photos) and FamilySearch. Those are the ones I would recommend but not everyone will be able to use them (unless they're willing to learn).
Random idea... perhaps have a group video chat with visual element. You can share a photo and ask folks to share what they remember. You can often record the sessions so you can stay focused on the conversation. It's a random idea, like I said.
Awesome!
Glad you think so!
You forgot the link to that small scanner.
Never mind. It's gone forever.
Aaand the plot thickens. Flip-pal says their supplier refuses to make more. Yet the Doxie flip looks identical to me, and it's still for sale..
Ann... I just learned about this! I though FlipPal was still useful. That's why I didn't add a link. The Doxie Flip looks very similar. I'll add a link and update the description. www.getdoxie.com/product/flip
If I have negatives and prints from them, I always scan the negatives, not the print. The resulting scan has FAR more detail than scanned prints.
I am lucky enough to have negatives dating back to the 1940s and their scans put anything on photo paper to shame. Maybe a poster sized print could come close, but then it wouldn't fit on my scanner.
If I had negatives and a light board, I would go with your suggestion. The problem is that few people have those two items to make digital prints for. But I'm glad you mentioned it for those who do have them.
A couple of people have told me that I should use my iPhone to photograph old photo prints, rather than scanning them. What’s the advantage? Or disadvantage?
Advantage - portable.
Disadvantage - so many image errors can creep into the process.
If I'm traveling and visiting a relative, I will use an App.
If I have the ability to use a scanner, I will always prefer that. Also, you can scan images at higher resolutions on with a scanner which can give you more benefits when either trying to increase the image print size or if you need to do any touch up work.
@@FamilyHistoryFanatics another disadvantage is that the phone/camera may not be level.
I inherited photos from Mom, Dad and Grandmother but have no idea who most are of!
I can related in more ways that one. I did have a break through with solving one mystery woman. You can read about that here. blog.familyhistoryfanatics.com/combined-photo-collection-solves-mystery
If you have the time and energy, start asking relatives and family friends if they recognize folks in the pictures. You can use Facebook to share the photos, emails, or visits (well, when quarantine ends). At some point, you might run out of folks who can help you identify the individuals. When you reach that point, you have to decide if the photo is worth keeping or not. That's a discussion for another day.
if you have no idea what the time-frame could be, keep the sets grouped by box or by album, scan them with an average-quality fast scanner, or even just rapid whole-page snapshots with your phone, and share them as sets online, and ask family to comment. You can even set up slideshow sessions when you meet up with family, and record a video with your phone while people point out who/what/where the photo was about. You might even get awesome stories from elder relatives. Then when you get home, use that slideshow session recording to add the details to the photos (both digital and on the backs of the originals), and organize them accordingly.
Im in the same predicament
I really need to do this. Right now I am still organizing my DNA matches into my tree (in Rootsmagic). Just very time consuming.
I hear ya. There's only so much that we can do at once.
I'm so overwhelmed where to start. I don't know what theme I want to make my scrapbooks, so i don't know how to organize my photos. I
Go through your photos and see what grabs you. If you digitize the photos, you can make a number of themes. Find one theme that will motivate you - Christmases through the years, our homes. My parents, etc. Make one and you'll be surprised how this will help you.
Same here! Been feeling muddled, get distracted / diverted, and paralysed by indecision 🙄But I found the answer to your question helpful: basically, pick just one criterion and get started!
We presently have technology that uses AI to restore distorted photos quite well and this technology will only get better as time passes. Unless a photo is so horribly damaged that a scanner couldn't possibly pick up any data from it, I'd pass on throwing out the photos you suggest ditching.
Feel free to pass on the blurry and other such photos. I will still recommend downsizing them since the AI is an artistic interpretation. I've had this discussion with photo restoration artists, and they keep pointing out that whether a human or a computer restores a photo, it's not always accurate.
Additionally, many people these days have massive photo collections and descendants who struggle with overwhelm when inheriting them. If we can reduce the photos to the genealogically significant and personal history storytelling photos - rather than every photo in the collection, we increase the chances that the collections will be treasured and not tossed.
I have tried so many times to organize my photos by my younger to older yrs. By each child bilateral I've had 3 so how do you do that when all3 children are in so many pictures?? It doesn't work and will make your brain short out! 😂
GREAT QUESTION.
I tend to keep photos of families together when they lived together.
For instance, before my mother married, her photos and all her siblings are in the folder of her parents Lewis and Louis. When my mother married my father, then their folder was created - Penny and Bob. My photos are all in Penny and Bob's folder until I married Andy. From that point forward Andy and I are in a folder of our own.
Now... what do you do about family vacations?
Well, that can get tricky but I tend to put family vacation photos in the folder of the person taking the photo. But I can make allowances if there is something significant. For instance, if my kids and I go to my cousin's wedding. Then the photos are really housed in my cousin's folder and we 'tag along'.
Now... how do you remember where everything is?
That's when tagging using a program like Photoshop Elements or Google Photos comes in handy.