Anyone have too many photos?

I'm having trouble with photos. I feel like I shoot so many pictures but don't do anything with them until there are just too many to go through. It's overwhelming to sort thru, and I have a rela hard time picking out the best ones. Just seems like it takes forever.

Any advice? Thanks!

This mainly goes for digital photos, because people who use a camera with film in it generally don't shoot too many:

1. Consider how you view your photos. If you're looking at them one by one and then try to sort out the good ones, that may be overwhelming.
I like looking at all the photos from an event as thumbnails when doing the initial sorting because it highlights the structure of the scene in the photo. When I'm left with 40 photos I will start looking at the them one by one.

2: Set aside time on your calendar to sort through photos. That way you'll do more sorting sessions, but at least there will be less pictures to go through.

I think the advice above is really good especially for digital. Doing an initial sort of the ones you love and the obvious deletes can give the momentum needed to continue. A little at a time, I find starting with pictures I am excited/inspired by help a lot.

However I really just wanted to let you know you are not alone in feeling overwhelmed with the amount of pictures. I feel like the last two years went by in a blink of an eye. I have yet to completely finish editing and printing a full year from the past two and here it is 2017. EEK!

If you have a scanner scan them to your computer above advice is all great not a lot to add

I can see your point, but I'd rather have too many than not enough. Like when you get home and think "I took all these pictures and U ncle George isn't in any of them!" Or worse you aren't in any of them because you hogged the camera, and 50 years from now the kids and grandkids are saying "Why isn't mom/grams in any of these pictures?" I wonder what she looked like?

After the event I go through the photos and only print the best ones. I then put them in the photo box in chronological order. I scrap in chronological order - scrapping the first photo that matches the theme or color of the challenge I'm working on.

OMG, great idea, but how do you discipline yourself to do that.

I'm in the middle of a huge catch up right now and it is SO overwhelming! Here's how I keep some of my sanity:

On my computer I sort my photos into 6 month increments. Jan-July in one folder, Aug-dec in another.

I go through and delete all the bad ones (out of focus, etc). After that I pick the best ones, the ones i want to print and copy them to a usb.

I bring the usb to the store to print the photos. I only do about 100-150 at a time, otherwise ill spend days trying to get them in chronological order (The photos come back in random order after printing).

Hope that helps!

-Melissa

I'm in Hawaii. Bill and I took over 200 pictures today. As soon as we got back to our room I went through all, deleted the junk and there are 48 pictures left.

They have been tagged in Photo Gallery, labeled, titled, edited and are in a file - in order, ready for me to take them in order and scrap them.

To me, the only way to keep things under control is to put a little time aside every night to take care of the day's photos and journal the events of the day so its done when you are ready to scrap the pictures.

It doesn't even take discipline. While Bill is in the shower at night, I take care of the pictures. Been doing it that way for years.

I'm scrapping a Caribbean cruise from last spring. Pictures are edited, cropped, dated and ready to just scrap. They are even in a file called, "Islands in the Sun", which is the name of the Caribbean Cruise book. The next 7 books are ready to go too.

There are some really great ideas on here. I take way too many photos and now my daughter has a really nice camera she got for Christmas so between the two of us we have literally hundreds of decent pictures. I absolutely hate having my picture taken, but I've realized there are entire vacations where i'm not in any photo so i'm trying to get more comfortable with my kids taking my pic because I know they will want some one day. I also love the idea of sorting them by 6 months, but that would still be too many for us so I may either do it by month or by quarter.
One other tidbit that helps me. If I take photos of say Christmas, I use that as my main folder. Then I add a subfolder that is labeled "to print" I add a second sub folder labeled "not to print" I add the ones that I don't think I want but don't really want to delete. that way I can always go back to them if I want to. I do delete the really bad ones.

I agree that digital has certainly changed the way we take photographs. It's so easy to take 100's hoping to get a good one, rather than waiting for that opportune moment. We're less selective of our subject matter, which means we end up with a lot more junk to sort through.

I'm not sure if this helps, but ...

The purpose of photos is to help recall memories of an event. You don't need all 100 of them in order to do that.

My rules for my photos (assuming that I intend to scrapbook or archive them) are pretty simple. It makes the selection process really a lot simpler.

1. You don't need more than three - five photos of any single event to archive the importance of it. More than that and it becomes not much more than a photo shoot.
2. Never keep a photo that doesn't tell a story on its own.
3. Record the story WITH the photo as soon as possible so you don't forget the details.
4. Out of focus, frame, exposure issues - toss all those. You'll never miss them.

5. Never keep a photo that you don't absolutely LOVE

The caveat to #5 is ~ Unless it has historical significance. And few photos really do, especially after two generations have passed. I''ve gone through tons of old family photographs of my grandparents, their parents, my parents, my great aunts ... Most of the people in these old photos - they're gone from my family history beyond their names and how they were related to me. The only ones that matter to me are my great grandparents because I knew them. For my kids, it'll be my grandparents. For their kids, it'll be ... anyway, you get the general idea.

What it really boils down to is history. Whose memories are you holding onto?