So Many Photos So Little Patience

My photos are sorted on my External Hard Drive by year and then broken down in those years by month and each month the photos are sorted by date. If there are multiple photos on a date they are sorted by that date + a number: For example 01/01/16(1) 01/02/16(2).
It works for me just fine, it's just taking the time to do it.

I also would like to print them even though I know I don't need to.
I love that different photo printing sites have apps but what I've been noticing is that the apps and the websites doen't link.
For example if I go to Walgreens App I can upload all my photos, but when I visit the website they're not here; they are only there on my phone.
I don't mind the app uploading, it's pretty darn quick and easy to do from my phone... but the mechanics of sorting and ordering and if necessary editing is so much easier on the big screen of a computer.
If they could figure out a way to integrate the 2 together it would make (part) my dilemma a bit easier!

Anybody know a photo place where the website and app integrate w/ each other?

Oh Doreen, I feel your pain. What program are you currently using for your photo library? Does it at least sort by month?

I guess my suggestionis along the lines of Henri Jeans..... Pick one way, I find by date to be easiest, then keyword all your pictures.
Now you have one solid foundational system that can be searched a multitude of ways quickly.

Keywording can be time consuming but once you get into a regular routine of uploading pictures it will come naturally. Not to mention the first time you do a search, you will be so happy you did it.

Sorry sometimes I get so overwhelmed I have to whine! LOL!

But I am still VERY interested in hearing what other people would do in my situation or are currently doing in general w/ their photos!

Oh wow, that is AMAZING and you are VERY ORGANIZED!
LOL!

I can't do that.
I'm having trouble just organizing by month and year!!!
My ADD causes my brain to get bored w/in minutes.
It sucks!

The older I get the worse I get!

After I wrote the last post that restarted this thread I realized that my only solution is this:

Set aside a day once a week (or every 2 weeks - maybe my Friday off) to tackle 1 month at a time.
Starting backward.
Start w/ January 2016 and moving a month back at a time.
Along w/ the current "finished" month.

If you use Microsoft and windows, there is a wonderful program called Photo Gallery. Its free. It does not store you photos - but it is used for editing them and tagging them.

When I started using photo gallery I had approximately 20,000 pictures on my computer. Now I have around 40,000 but the majority are digital images for digital scrapbooking and digital scrapbook pages.

Anway, I put my pictures in the computer in two sections - digital papers and elements (you probably don't need that unless you digi scrap) and actual photos which are in files by country or state. Then I have other miscellaneous files like scrapbook pages in jpg, recipe photos, Childhood friends, and Hobbies and collectibles. In those files, they are tagged with dates the same way so everything is consistent.

But since I tag them, I can type in my brother's name and every picture with him in it, no matter how many people are the photo with him, every picture with my brother will come up. My best friend in high school - I type in her name and every picture of her comes up from elementary school.

If I go to Travel USA and open the Hawaii file, there are pictures from 10 or 11 trips to Hawaii in order. We use 2 cameras and all of the decent pictures are there. Same thing with every other country in the world under Travel - International and every state in Travel - USA.

I can type in "flowers" and get every picture with a flower in it in one click.

My pictures are labeled consistently - the year dash month dash day and then anything else I want to add. 2015-12-25 (1) Christmas at mom's in Alabama. That batch of pictures would be filed under "Travel - USA" in the "Alabama" file.

You can tag an entire batch at once and in WIndows you can put labels on an entire batch. Just highlight them all and go to rename in the pull down bar. Type in the date-month-year (1) and the place or even, hit enter and the entire page or series of pictures is labelled in order. The next will automatically be (2) then (2) so it takes seconds.

I have two external drives. A passport which stays in my purse. If I'm away from home and my house burns down, I have my external.

My second external stays in the kitchen at the other end of the house. If I'm onn a trip and have my computer and my external in my purse and the cruise ship sinks - my pictures are in the kitchen in a stock pot on top of the refrigerator. No one would want to steal it (not worth anything to anyone but me) but it is high enough to be safe (I hope) from flooding and it is given some distance from the computer in case of fire.

If the house burns down or floods and my computer and purse are ruined, the external on top of the refrigerator is is most likely going to be fine.

I back all document and photo files every Friday night. Takes about 25 minutes per external.

Once a month I back up and make a complete system image for both externals at the same time - takes about 3 hours.

I do not make prints to have. They are on the computer and I can make prints anytime. I have saved so much money since I came to this realization!

Last night for some reason my husband asked to see the picture of him and the alligator in the Everglades. I typed in "Alligator" and up popped 4 alligator die cuts I'd scanned, 2 pieces of paper with alligators on them and several pictures with alligators including two taken in the Everglades and one of them was exactly what my husband was looking for. TOok less than 30 seconds to find.

I understand your frustration. I was there in 2014 but with photo gallery (free), every picture is a click away. However, it does take time to go in and tag anything. Hopefully most people won't have 20,000 pictures when they undertake the project! But it can be done - it took me 3 months to catch them up and tag them all but I did it!

Oh yeah, in the tag information I always list the year. That way I can just type in 2014 and every picture I took that year will show up on my screen - in order. If we went to Micronesia, China and Singapore, its all there if I type in 2014.

Or I can just type in 2014 Mediterranean cruise and get the entire trip.

There are several components to Photo Gallery. It has photo editing which I love, photo tagging and movie making in the same component but I did not load the instant messaging program or the email program. I already have an outlook email program and don't need another email program. And I don't need the instant messaging program but you have to watch carefully to make sure you uncheck on the instant messaging and email components but leave the photo/movie making box checked.

Okay I went from too many copies to no copies... I haven't done anything since posting this and my anxiety is through the roof! I don't even care about prints at this point I just need an easy way to organize. I haven't done anything w/ my photos in over 2 years , except for the occasional print from my home printer to make a scrapbook page,and I keep taking them so the backlog is getting worse and worse!

I even made folders on my phone but plugging in the phone and uploading it to my computer doesn't seem to work. What shows up on my Computer Screen isn't how I sorted them in my phone so I have to search and chose before I download and once I find what I need I still need to organize them. I don't have that kind of time or patience.

And the cloud, oh don't get me started on the cloud! Sure it's organized but it save every fricking picture ever taken, even the deleted ones, so I have double/triple the amount of photos to go through!

I am actually sick to my stomach when I think about this!

I used to be so organized and now I feel like I never will be again!

I agree that you don't need one just to "have" if you are printing a copy to go on a scrapbook layout...
What do you do with these extra copies? Do you ever use them? Look at them again?
If you have a copy IN a scrapbook, why do you need an extra copy?

I upload all my photos from DSLR, iphone to my computer, organize into "albums" in Photos (Mac) and then back up to 2 external hard drives and icloud.
I'm also a fan of deleting a bunch of photos. I do not keep all my photos. If I have 3 very similar shots, I delete 2. If the photo is not that good, I delete it.....

Thank you to everyone who replied.
I appreciate it!

And for those who said I don't need to print every photo since I have them saved digitally... I know... I mean I understand this, but... I'm a bit old school and it is very hard to break that habit.

I may need to really try though because the anxiety is starting to get to me.

Thanks again for your thoughts and suggestions!

I think that maybe you're overwhelmed because you might be a photo "hoarder." It's easy to over-collect photos in this digital age but, as you say, it takes the fun out of both the photography and the memory keeping.

Before you print anything, you need to start deleting all but the absolute BEST photos you have. Best can sometimes be "not great but all I have," but -- mostly -- it's the five or six photos you like best from a particular event or "shoot."

Yep, I said five or six. Pretend it's 1979 and all you've got is an SLR that shoots film. You may not be old enough to remember what it's like to have to be that selective about what you photograph but that's the first step to "taming the photo beast."

Based on what I've seen of peoples' phone photos, I suggest you start to purge on your phone's camera roll. It's too easy to shoot mediocre photos on those things and the only reason to keep a mediocre photo is if it's the ONLY one you have of something that's really important to you.

Like Don says, back-up like crazy, but don't keep a huge digital archive of photos you'll never look at. If you don't like the photo enough to use it for memory-keeping, why keep it?

As Stacy Julian always says, you'll never have time to do something will all your photos, but you can make time to do something with some of them. It's hard to focus on the "some" when you're bogged down by all the rest though so there's some tedious work to be done first. It'll feel great when you're done though AND it'll serve as a life-long reminder not to point a camera at everything that moves, just because you can.

Bottom line: organizing and printing photos is a lot like organizing your stash -- the waste basket is your best friend.

Doreena, I know sometimes it is hard to change old habits, but I would definitely stop the process of printing one to "have". Saving them digitally, especially in multiple locations should be able to take the place of having a hard copy. Print only those you want to "use" - for scrapbooks, framing, etc. Remember, when they are in scrapbooks, you still "have" them, and are much more likely to look at them again than if they were stored in a box with a thousand other photos.

I agree with Don, I don't think you need to have an extra hard copy of the photo. That's just more to store and organize...eek!

As far as my process goes. I try really hard to only use my camera for photos. Mainly because my phone takes horrible pictures (actually I think its me...I just cant keep my hand still enough). Pretty regularly I upload the pictures from my camera to my computer.... I hate having 100's of pictures on the SD drive (for fear of losing them, been there). Once they are on my computer I try to organize them by months (or events if it was a big one like a trip). Then I try to immediately upload them to my walgreens.com account. #1 it makes me feel better knowing there is a second copy in case my computer dies or is stolen. #2 then I can leisurely print the photos I want when I am ready to do a LO. It usually only takes 2 hours to process. So as long as I order the prints by lunch, I can pick them up on my way home and then scrap after DD goes to bed.

Sometimes I get excited and print a bunch of photos (mainly because I am convinced I will get like 5 LOs done even though I only have time for 1 or 2). SO while the pictures are waiting to be scrapped I keep them in a 3 ring binder with divided page protectors (buy them from amazon...I think the are actually supposed to be for recipe cards, but they are great for me). I like having them there so I can do them whenever I am inspired.

That works for me currently because I am scrapping all new photos taken with the last 2 years. But I like my system and its fairly organized.

I store all the GOOD photos on my computer and use Picasa. I keep them in directories by month/year for day-to-day photos and by category for events and vacations. The directory name describes what's in it, like "June 2015 photos" or "Italy" I print my own photos, but having them by category makes it easier to figure what I've printed. So, if I want to scrap more Italy, I would look at the layout I already made and the directory (through picasa) and see what I want to print.

I use a disc and a drive. I like having back up, especially since one of our computers died 'painfully'.

The drive is used for 'Gotta go to XYZ and get pictures developed.'

Don, I can understand a 2nd copy. I've used 2nd copies for other scrap pages/other people.

Why print one to "have"? It's on the 'puter, and surely you back up your 'puter and put all pics on a flash drive. (If you don't have it in 3 places, you don't have it)

I copy several images to a WORD document. i resize them and can fit many images on a single page. The toolbar in the software allows you to crop a photo to save space. If I'm not sure about the right size for a purpose, then I make several different sizes on the same page. I use photo printing paper and get good results each time. I have NEVER sent anything out to be printed.

I haven't printed photos on a regular basis in over a year and I am very overwhelmed!
The money aspect doesn't bother me...
What bothers me is trying to keep track of it all!

I have 3 cameras: 1 point and shoot digital, 1 "fancy" zoom digital, and my phone.
*I use my phone the most

I have to try to figure out which photos I have/haven't printed.
I have to download them to a photo printing site as well as download/send/organize them on my computer and external hard drives.

And when I finally figure out what I need to print I need to figure out what sizes will suit them best do to cropping resolution issues which may lead to different sized photos all in the same order! My OCD doesn't like that!

Not to mention if I want to scrap a photo I then need to order duplicates: one to have and one to scrap.

All of this is making me very anxious and I feel I will never get back to the joy of photography and scrapping if I don't figure this out!

Please share w/ me your photo storing/printing processes and routines.
The easier the better!

TIA!