This is the second post in a series on photography. If you missed the first, see Treasured Moments in Art.
When I was growing up, my mother or father took the photos for the passages of our lives. We were posed, stood still with our little smiles, and a button was pushed. Birthdays, holidays, and vacations. Photos were taken for these important happenings, they were printed, and then they were put in the photo album or stored in the photo envelope in my father’s desk.
Now in the digital age, we take photos constantly. Smartphones have great little cameras and daily life is captured instantly. How many photos do you have on your phone? Do you ever get the message “not enough storage“? Can you find a photo if you need to? Are your photos organized on your phone? Today let’s look at a few steps that you can take to organize your photos and keep future ones organized as they are taken.
I. Edit When You Shoot
You’ve just taken a string of photos of your child or grandchild. Some are a little off or not great. One or two are good. If you took 15 shots, you now have 15 photos on your phone in the camera roll. Immediately edit and delete those that are not acceptable. If you do this every time you take pictures, think about how easier it is to handle a year’s worth of photos.
II. Collect Your Photos
When you use a photo-friendly app like SnapChat, you can go into settings and choose where photos are saved. For all photo apps, choose the camera roll as the default location for all photos. Now you don’t have to worry about losing a shot.
III. Let Go
Hoarding photos will lead to NO MORE SPACE. There are some photos you will cherish forever. Other photos may no longer be useful – do you really need a shot of your restaurant dinner from 2015? Just as you need to clean closets, clean out your phone occasionally. If you have to have it, just move it to your photo storage.
IV. Use the Albums Feature
Do you use the albums feature on iPhones? You can set up any kind of album but the easiest is occasion and date like Mary’s birthday, Mary-BD-2019. As a grandparent you might want an album for grandchildren or family shots. A gardener might want albums for garden shots by season. It’s your collection and you can organize the way it best works for you.
V. Back Up Your Photos
Save your snapshots to your computer, a hard drive, the cloud or a storage app. I keep all my blog photos on my laptop. As I’ve mentioned before, I often use Printique (formally Adoramapix) for professional printing. They still offer free photo storage at their site.
Flickr is another great photo community with great benefits. Late last year the free option at Flickr changed and limited storage to 1000 photos. On January 8th, 2019, if you had not deleted the excessive number of photos and did not upgrade to Flickr Pro, Flickr would delete the photos starting with the oldest until you are down to 1000. Flickr Pro users now have access to unlimited video and photo storage. The paid plan also includes in-depth stats, ad-free browsing, discounts on other services and 5K photo support. Starting early 2019, you’ll be able to upload videos up to ten minutes in length, up from the current three-minute limit. A Pro account will set you back $60.00 a year.
Apple offers 5 GB of storage on iCloud free. They offer 200 GB storage and 2 TB storage. Price depends on location worldwide. Google and various other services all over the internet have similar plans. Find one you like and back up those photos!
VI. Print Your Favorites
If it’s a new photo, most sites allow you to upload from your phone to print. If it’s an older photo, you’ve backed up photos to a photo site and now you can choose to print a photo. Again make folders at your storage site and it will be easy to access the photo later. Check out photo book options and save the best to print.
Photo via Amazon
I hope this information will help you conquer your bucket of digital photos on your phone and will make your life easier in the coming year!
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great tips! I really like taking photos at every moment, because each photo has hidden stories and memories.
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The good thing about not having a phone that doesn’t have a camera is I don’t have this problem! But it’s not unlike the same issue of downloading from my camera to computer and you offer good tips. I’m continually reviewing my albums and deleting the junk — too many of the more-or-less same thing, the pix you take for your blog that you don’t need anymore, that sort of thing. I have a pretty well organized filing system so it’s easy to find what I’m looking for. But it is a continual job to keep it managed when you take as much as I do!
Oh me too! I need to go through folders again and get rid of some not so great photos!
Great tips! Thanks for sharing this info. I use Google Photos to store all smartphone photos and my computer to download all the ones taken with the Canon. They also get saved in the cloud, using One Drive.
Debbie you are a woman after my own heart – organized!
Good tips. I too love to take photos with my phone camera.
This is SO helpful, as my phone photos are a mess. You inspire me to get more organized. I did find out when I got to 10,000 what no more would go into the iCloud until I saved some to another folder. I’m going to check into Adoramapix. That sounds like a great way to store photos to keep them safe. Thanks so much for all the info!
Great idea – and then when you want to print something, they’re already there. Good luck!
Very good tips Carol. My photos on my phone are a mess. 🙂
I’m so glad it helps!
Such great tips! I am not great about culling through the photos on my phone, even though many of them are not that great or not needed. Thanks so much for sharing your tips at Sweet Inspiration! I need to start implementing some of these!
These are wonderful tips, Carol! It really is important to keep photos organised. I have 3 boxes of physical photos to go through from over 50 years, and while it will be fun to look back, I don’t want to get into that sort of situation digitally too! Thank you for sharing, and for being a part of the Hearth and Soul Link Party. I hope you are having a lovely week. Happy Valentine’s Day!