How to organize your digital photos
The thought of going through your digital photos that were taken two years ago makes most people shudder. If someone asks you to show them last year's vacation pictures, it’s a workload looking for them if you are not in the habit of organizing digital photos. Nowadays, there are so many options to store digital family photos. From google cloud, flash drives, Facebook and Instagram feed, smartphones, tablets, old PCs, to some CDs you have misplaced somewhere in your closet. It's very easy to have your photos all over the place and get overwhelmed every time you think of retrieving or organizing them.
In this digital era, taking good care of your digital assets is one of the most vital things to do. Photos represent precious memories and you need to be able to have them all in one organized place that you are able to easily retrieve them, back them up, and have them there for generations to come.
It's a good idea to have an ongoing system to avoid a constant influx of digital photos to organize at any specific time.
Guide on how to sort, rename, and organize digital family photos
1. Sort it out!
Sure, this is a mess that's time-consuming to straighten out, but, the benefits outweigh the work put in. Make a decision on how you want to sort the photos out using a system that works best for you. You can decide to sort the pics out in categories such as; year, occasion, vacations, family and friends, etc.
Once the decision is made, create a file with the different category names, then go through the pictures one by one and place each one in the designated folder. Don’t freak out if you have thousands of photos to sort out, it’s not a day’s job. Work at your pace, delete the blurry and duplicate photos, and throw away the meaningless photos as well.
You are allowed to put some music on and have a snack while at it. Once done, and each pic is in the rightful folder, do a happy dance. Celebrate the little milestones.
2. Rename your pictures
Digital photos are usually auto-named by cameras and in order for your pics to make sense to you and to reflect the specific event, you need to rename them accordingly. It is too cumbersome sifting through all photos so as to see a particular picture. The easy solution to this is labeling your photos with relevant keywords that you will easily remember so that you just search for it and get it. It is much better than having random numbers that are meaningless to you.
With Filestar, you can quickly rename a picture or a batch of pictures by selecting ‘change name’ and keying in the desired name e.g. Summer Vacation 2019. The name will be applied to the photos instantly.
3. Flip or rotate images
Whenever digital photos are captured, it is at the photographer’s discretion to capture them as he/she sees fit. Sometimes they might be upside down or the edges not properly lined up. It is a cumbersome task to line up edges by rotating or flipping images manually. Filestar has automated the process for you by allowing you to use the skill ‘rotate’ or ‘flip’ typed in the search query field.
4. Filter adjustment and color desaturating
When organizing your photos, you might come across dull pictures or pictures that need some tone adjustments to look more appealing or more natural. Filestar helps you create a high impact picture by typing in ‘add filter’ option and choosing from the various filter options available.
Black and white photos make pictures look bolder as they accentuate the contours. Simply upload the photos you want and type in ‘grayscale' or 'black and white’ in the search box and you are ready to go.
5. Add text to image
There might be photos that you come across and would like to upload onto your Instagram or Facebook feed. Adding text to images is big on social media sites to show date, location, or to engage the audience to take a vote. However, don’t clutter the image with text, keep the text easy to read, and ensure the image is still clear.
With Filestar, you can add text, choose the font type, font color, and select the text placement on your image.
6. Change image file format
If you want to display or archive your photos, different file formats are best for a specific task. Some images are best shown.JPG others as.PNG or .GIF. Filestar allows you to easily convert your photos to the file format that best suits your needs. Simply upload the digital pictures you want to convert, type in ‘convert to.png’ in the search box, and apply the required changes on the pictures.
Remember to do this frequently as it is way easier to organize digital family photos in small batches than months of accumulated workload. After organizing, back it up and it is important to keep in mind social media sites are not backup options. Your hard drive or memory card can fail you and you don’t want all your work and effort to go down the drain when you lose everything.