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How to organise your digital and traditional photographs in a
single system
by Kesh Morjaria
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Digital
photography promises much. Store your photographs on your computer,
print them when you want, email them to friends and family – share
them to your heart’s content. Couldn’t be easier, could it? So how
come that for most of us storing and sharing our photographs is
a bit of a nightmare?
The ease of using a digital camera is its very undoing. It’s easy
to take some shots and then ‘work on them later’. The trouble is
that ‘later’ doesn’t happen often enough and we build up a huge
backlog of images that we have to sort and process. That’s where
things start to get untidy. Very soon you won’t know what you’ve
printed or you won’t be able to find the original file of that cute
shot that your wife wants a copy of.
So what’s the answer? As the Greek philosopher Hesiod put it nearly
3,000 years ago, “It is best to do things systematically and disorder
is our worst enemy.” You need to plan a system for processing your
photographs and be systematic in everything you do.
You probably remember that after the thrill of your first digital
camera, you began to realize some of its limitations. Without a
computer or other digital device, it’s hard to share them with granny
or the cousins back home. You realize that you have to have traditional
prints to pass around and share.
So the planning system you adopt must cater for both digital and
physical prints – you need a single system that organizes both and
ensures your precious memories are stored forever.
Here’s a six point plan to establishing your own system.
1. Decide how you want to organise your photographs
Without a system, you’ll just get a list of meaningless file names.
The longer this goes on, the harder it will be for you to find the
photos that you want.
You’ve got to have a system – a way of organising – one that suits
you. I choose to organise my photos by event – but you could do
it by date, by family member or by whatever is meaningful to you.
Under ‘My Pictures’ on my hard drive, I have four sub-folders –
Family, Business, Holidays and ‘The Best’. The first three are self-explanatory;
‘The Best’ is where I keep images of which I’m particularly proud.
2. Create mirror images on both your computer and photo album
People love traditional prints so no matter how proud you may be
of your computer skills, to really share your photos with friends
and family, you’ll need physical prints to pass around. And to get
the most from your memories you should have a single system that
runs across both.
Once you’ve decided on your system – use the same categories on
both your computer and your physical photo album.
3. Taking your photos
Snap away happily but don’t carry around useless photographs on
your camera or waste your time downloading them before deciding
to bin them. As soon as you’ve taken photographs have a quick look
at them and dump the ones that don’t look special. Be ruthless and
immediate.
4. Downloading back home
The temptation is to rush and get the exciting photos on the machine.
This is where discipline is needed. You need to have an uninterrupted
session. If you can arrange that easily fine. If you can’t you should
set aside a regular time once a week to do all your photographic
work.
There are four tasks:
•Download your photographs onto your hard disk
•Edit them, e.g. get rid of red eye
•Give each file a meaningful name with a date – so instead of ‘P1010012’
use ‘Sarah on the beach 07/03’
•Save them in the appropriate folder.
Now make a back up copy. This is essential – you don’t want to risk
losing your images. I use a ZIP drive for back-up.
5. Print your photographs
Plan what prints you want, print them and put them into your album
immediately. Update your album index as you do so.
6. Store them and show them (but don’t ever give them away)
Never give your album photographs away. If someone wants a copy,
resist the temptation to hand them your album copy. Instead, print
them a new one or email them a digital version.
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| About
the Author |
Kesh
Morjaria is passionate about organising and runs Arrowfile.com.
He provides an extensive range of organizing products that are used
not only in the home but by professional photographers, collectors,
local government, museums – even police forces. You can find the
full range at http://www.arrowfile.com
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