Because digital photography has no film and appears to be free, people are taking on average 10 times as many photos than they did with film and yet printing very few of them. There may be no film but there is a cost! The hard drives eventually fill up with photos and more importantly become so cluttered with unorganised photos that it becomes impossible to find an image you know is in there. The real cost then is waste of time and not being able to enjoy using your photos.
After downloading your photos, run a slide show delete the poor photos and also delete unecessary duplicates. Keep the good images and file them with key words, then you will be able to access any photo anytime.
FILE
You can file in folders by date, but the real advantage of digital is that you can build up heirachial folders based on subjects or places.
Macintosh users can tend to use iPhoto which is an excellent easy to use system with key words and display albums.
Windows users use a variety of methods -
Here are a few ideas for Windows and Mac
How to organise your Digital photos
Organise your Digital Pictures -by Tony Northrup - Good detailed explanation
Organising your photos on a PC - by Lincoln Spector - Quick overview
Organise and share pictures in Picasa Picasa is an online sharing system but it also has free downloadable software to help organise your photos. This link has a video which explains how to use it. or try the Picasa website
How to organize your photos - tips and ideas.
My Digital Photo Management Workflow - By Sue Chastain - One persons way of organising - give you lots of ideas.
BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP !!!
One day you may be very sorry if you do not back up - hard drives do not last forever. With the cost of external hard drives coming down, the best option is to back everything up regularly on a hard drive as well as keeping copies of your top photos on CD or DVD stored at a separate location. Here is a tutorial on backing up photos using Photoshop Elements.
Organize and Archive by Deb Tappan