Organizing Photos Part 2.

Here is how I organized my thousands of photos that I wrote about, here.

First, I started with the photo files I had saved on my computer desktop. I started with the most recent and worked my way backwards. I renamed each file with the date the picture was taken and the event, holiday or birthday that was taking place. If it was just one of our many random photo shoots I just used the date.

After all of the files were renamed I began separating and putting them into files named by month.  Then I put each month folder into a folder named by quarter months. Finally each quarter months files went into a file with the year on it. Here are some screen shot to help make this a bit more clear :)

When clicking on file on the desktop named by the year, it opens up to 4 different files named by a 3 month span.

Each quarter file opens up to the individual months in that quarter.

Each month opens up to all of the individually dated files.

Clear as mud now?

Obviously, this is just how I chose to do it. There are many different ways you could organize the files I just found this to be the most detailed and least cluttered for me.

I did the same thing for all of the photos on my memory cards from my camera.

Finally, I saved all of the files, except for the current year, onto an external device. I chose a zip drive, but you could use anything you're comfortable using. After I verified they saved to the zip drive I deleted them from my computer.

I'm leaving the current years photos on my computer until the end of the year. All of the photos are backed up onto a printing sight so they are safe if my computer crashes.

Well, I'm not sure if I helped anyone out or just confused you...but I tried :) 

After I get my photos printed I will have a post about how I had them printed, a review about who I used and how I'm choosing to store the prints. I promise that post will be much simpler and less confusing :)