Hey Guys! We have another guest contributor post for you today (I love these)! Without further ado, here is Monica from Winnipeg, Canada sharing some SikhMama tips on how to organize your digital photos and create long lasting memories for your family. I don’t know about you, but I really want to get a start on this, I have over 15 years of memories to sort through!
-ThatSikhMama (Kiranjot Kaur)
How many times have we said as moms “I wish I could freeze time!” There is nothing more important to me than documenting life’s precious moments so we have something to cherish as the time of life ticks along.
My name is Monica Kalar, I live in Winnipeg, MB. I’m a wife to an amazingly supportive husband and a proud mom to a vibrant 3 year old boy. I also work as a Nurse Practitioner, following my other passion in life which is to help people.
I enjoy spending time with my family, cooking, baking and staying active. In my spare time, I love to get myself organized. As a busy mom, it is easy to get caught up in the moment but I make it a priority to capture these precious moments. This way I can document our journey and we can enjoy these memories as a family, reliving our joy endlessly through this journaling.
In 2016, I gave birth to our son and with that I wanted to capture all the precious moments.
My camera roll on my phone and camera quickly started to accumulate and it got overwhelming.
What was the point of taking these photos, if I wasn’t going to get them printed or in albums? To me they were of no use if they weren’t available for everyone to enjoy as much as I do. These days, when we change phones as often as we do our car’s oil, these pictures just get lost in translation.
So I started my photo organization project when our son was a year old.
When I first started this process, it was overwhelming and stressful.
I remember asking myself :
“What is the best way to organize all of these photos?”
“How was I going to ever get this done?”
Now that we had a little one, I felt it was so much more important to capture him being the way he was. All of a sudden, I had hundreds and then thousands of photos by the end of each year.
I knew I would have to organize these photos sooner than later, or this was going to become one big (ger) project to tackle down the road, as more photos accumulate every year! And we all know life with kids never gets less busy!
How to Organize A Family Photobook/Yearbook (15 easy steps)
STEP 1 – DOWNLOAD
- Get all of your pictures from all devices (phones + camera) on to a computer.
- All of your photos need to be in one place so you can sort them properly.
STEP 2 – REVIEW THE DOWNLOADED PHOTOS
- Delete any duplicates.
- Delete the blurry photos.
- Delete any photos you may not like.
STEP 3 – CATEGORIZE THE PHOTOS INTO A FOLDER
- Organize the photos by YEAR. I chose to stick to a yearly photo book going forward; since one photo book is easy to manage than multiple photo books. Also, twenty years from now, I can still have these on our book shelf and not be overwhelmed with the overall number of photo books.
- Make a folder labeled 2018.
- You may end up with hundreds /thousands of photos in this folder.
- Do not panic about this number!
STEP 4 – MAKE A FAVORITE FOLDER
- Make a folder labelled “2018 FAVORITE”
*Set a goal that you will have a maximum of 500 images in this folder*
Keep in mind: These are the photos that are your absolute favorite images that you want to remember years from now. I know it can be hard to select only a few hundred photos out of the thousands of photos you took all year.
- Select photos that tell a story.
- You do not need too many photos from the same day/event.
- Select photos that are better quality.
- You don’t want an album full of selfies so try to avoid selfies.
STEP 5 – REVIEW FOLDER
- Review this “2018 FAVORITE” folder
- Do you still love all these photos in this album? If not, delete any that you don’t absolutely love.
- Don’t be afraid to get rid of any images that you feel no longer belong.
- All these photos that you are deleting from this folder are still in your main “2018” folder
STEP 6 – EDIT PHOTOS
Optional (highly recommended)
- Edit your photos
- Whether you edit on your Photos App on your computer or Lightroom or whatever else you prefer to use.
- There are so many presets you can buy for a reasonable price which makes the editing process a little bit easier. (Search Etsy for “Lightroom Presets”). I used Monika Hibbs’ presets for this year’s album.
- By editing your photos, they will look that much nicer/clearer in the album.
- If you prefer to skip this step – that’s totally fine!
STEP 7 – REVIEW EDITED PHOTOS
- If you have edited your photos, go through your favorite album again to make sure all the images in this album belong in your album.
- Organize this folder by selecting “Sort by Date” this way your photos will be in order from start to end of the year.
STEP 8 – START MAKING THE PHOTO BOOK
- Select a photo book software/website of your choice .
- I have tried a few different websites/companies and my favorite one to use is Artifact Uprising. I will discuss this below.
STEP 9 – MAKE YOUR PROFILE
- You will need to make a login/password
STEP 10 – UPLOAD IMAGES
- Upload all images from “2018 FAVORITE” into a photo book software.
STEP 11- ORGANIZE IMAGES INTO PHOTOBOOK
- Now that all images have been uploaded onto the photobook software, you can start plugging the photos into the photobook.
- Stick to a simple layout. I avoid any additional “embellishments or texts” when I make my albums.
- Adding embellishments and text to an album can make the photo books feel cluttered and it also requires more time.
- Let the focus be the photos.
- You can pick how many photos you want per page.
If you use Artifact Uprising, you can select anywhere from 1-4 photos per page.
- You can choose whichever order you want to sort your photos into the album. It does not necessarily need to be placed chronologically. When you look at this album a few years or ten years from now, it will not matter which order these photos are in. It just matters that they are there!
This step can be time consuming, but don’t give up now!
- Once you are at this step, there will be photos that you uploaded that you will decide no longer need to be in the album or that do not really fit and that’s okay!
STEP 12 – FINAL EDITS TO THE ALBUM
- Once you have plugged all the photos into the photo book album, go back to each photo and make sure the images are centered properly in the layout box.
- You might need to crop or move the image around. This is an important step and makes a big difference. You want things to look concise and organized.
STEP 13 – FRONT/BACK COVERS
- Pick your two favorite photos from the entire year.
- Add one of these images to the front cover and another to the back cover.
- Label your photobook by year “2018.”
STEP 14 – TAKE A BREAK!
- Step away from this project for a day or two.
- Go back to your photobook now that you have not seen it for a couple days and review the photobook one last time.
- Are you happy with the way it is?
It does not need to be “perfect”. This photo book is for you and your family.
STEP 15 – ORDER THE ALBUM
- Once you feel like it has everything you want in there, then place that order.
- ADD to Cart and PURCHASE
Do not let it sit in your cart, it has to be ordered!
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS – Quick Tips!
Once you finish your first photobook you will likely want to keep using this system.
I love this newfound system so much, now that I have a grasp on things.
One photo book a year is not too much work.
You can only put so many images in one album (let’s say maximum pf 450-500 images a year), so you will find that you do not need to be taking pictures all the time.
This works out to be about 30-40 photos per month.
It is easier to take family photos with a small tripod and remote for your phone. You can purchase a small tripod and remote for about $50-70 online, well worth it. It is cheap, easy, fun to use and you will get way better quality photos than a selfie.
I also schedule our family for at least one photoshoot per year.
I usually look for when photographers are offering “Mini Sessions.”
They are usually half the price, quick 20-30 minute photoshoot, with just the right amount of images.
You don’t need too many photos from any one given shoot or event.
STORAGE
Once you download your photos onto your computer, delete photos OFF of your camera/phones.
You don’t want to keep them on your camera or phone if you have already downloaded them.
Use an external hard drive and put the organized folder onto your hard drive.
You can even delete the photos off of your computer and store on a secondary external hard drive. It is always good to back-up photos in 2 separate locations/external hard drives.
PHOTO BOOK
I have used several photo book websites including Shutterfly, Blurb, Apple, Mixbook, Artifact Uprising.
As I mentioned above, my favourite website to use is: Artifact Uprising. It is high quality with a very simple layout/format. There are limited options to choose from in terms of layouts, so you won’t waste too much time choosing which layout you want to use. It is a bit more pricey, but worth it in my opinion.
You might read this post, feeling overwhelmed and asking yourself where you will find the time to do this!
I like to do this when I even have thirty minutes or so to spare.
For me, it is usually after the little one is tucked into bed and I miss him anyways! So this helps me relive our best moments even if it’s been a hard day.
Put on some music and have some fun with the process. Get your spouse involved! This makes for a wonderful date night and a great way to bond while reflecting on priceless moments.
The first time you do this it will take a bit longer. However, like everything else, it only gets easier!
If you have any questions/comments or need some help with this process, I would love to help!
Email me at [email protected]