No More Photo Albums
Friday, July 15, 2011 at 9:01AM
We don't do photo albums anymore. I won't let any in our house. Like most families, we at one time had lots and lots and lots of big, bulky albums filled with photos.
I took on the initiative of scanning every single photo in every single album, storing the actual photos away and throwing away the empty albums. It freed up an entire wall in our house. It took a long, long time to finish, but I DID finish.
If you have a large enough scanner and the right software, you can scan several photos at a time and let the software automatically crop and rotate the images. This can save a LOT of time. I used Photoshop, but other less expensive software like Photoshop Express have the same capability.
Going digital has also allowed me the ability to quickly access old photos based on a keyword. Whenever I'm looking for a certain shot I can usually find it in seconds. Not so easy when you have 20 or 30 photo albums that look alike.
Plenty of software allows you to add keywords to your photos (I use Lightroom). You can even store your photos on line using services that incorporate keyword filters like Flickr and Photobucket.
The thought of scanning your photos can be daunting and can take months to complete. I spread my scanning out over 12 months time, but didn't exactly stick to my self imposed schedule, so it took me an additional year to complete. Once I was finished I was glad I took the time.
BACK UP YOUR SCANS! How sad would it be if you got near the end only have your hard drive fail without a backup?