Tips for decluttering the thousands of photos on your device.

Our mobile phones have sadly become the final resting place for many of our family memories. Pictures of first days of school, fall adventures, family gatherings at home and other priceless moments in your family history never make it out of our mobile photo albums. The cloud gives us ample space to store thousands of photos – but it the number of images can quickly get out of control if not continually managed. If you take, say, 10 photos a day, every day for a year, that adds up to nearly 4,000 photos left to stagnate on your digital device.

But they don’t need to be lost and unseen. In fact, organizing and clearing your phone of clutter is similar to cleaning out a disorganized closet at home. When you’re cleaning, you will wonder what made you keep certain photos for so long, much like you might wonder why you kept a sweater from high school. No time is better than the present to sort out the mess on your phone.

Let Go of the Photo Clutter

We truly don’t need thousands of photos. If you scroll back in your camera roll, there may very well be duplicate photos, screenshots of recipes you never used or poor-quality photos. Delete these! You want your photos to tell a story about a memory you have and keeping photos that you will never use again only adds to the clutter. And clutter is the last thing you need when it comes to photo organization.

Beginning this process may be intimidating. It’s much like opening the closet you’ve been afraid to open for years, for fear that a ton of junk will tumble out. But you’ve got to let go of the junk to get to the memories that matter most.

Find Time to Delete

Spend time deleting duplicates and non-keepers while in line at the grocery store or set aside time once a week to delete photos. Just like the minimalist mantra, if something doesn’t bring joy, get rid of it.

Organize What’s Left

It takes time and computer know-how to begin the organization of your digital files, and this should also be an enjoyable process because you get to reminisce on past moments. Once you’ve sifted through which photos to keep and which photos to toss, you can begin placing the photos in folders or albums, either separated by year or by an event. This is exactly the process you might use when you are organizing your messy closet. Put winter items in one box, summer in another, and so forth.

Print them. Display them. Share them. 

Next, you’ll want to get your photos off your phone and have some type of physical output made. I recommend printing your favorites and making copies for every family member who is part of the story. Of course, you can also create photo books, framed wall galleries and keepsake gifts.

We all have those lonely shoeboxes of photos and negatives that weigh on our mind every time we open our closet doors. Tackling the contents of those boxes can seem daunting at best and insurmountable at worst. But don’t despair. Here are six tips that can help you sort through your photos and give yourself some organizational peace of mind.

1. Don’t be afraid of the trash bag. That family trip to the Grand Canyon was amazing, but do you really need a hundred photos of the Grand Canyon itself? The answer is no. Those multiple scenery shots, while beautiful, don’t tell the story any better than just one can. My general rule is to eliminate 80 percent of the photos in a box, keeping the other 20 percent for albums. Don’t worry, the Grand Canyon will be around for a long time. I promise that no one will forget what it looks like.

 2. Organize by theme.A lot of people think they need to organize their photos chronologically. For some, this method works very well. For others, however, this is a daunting and overwhelming task. It’s often easier — and more effective — to organize by theme. Organizing by theme makes it much simpler to pull together an album. Themes are also easier to identify than dates. While you may not be sure which year that Christmas photo was taken, you definitely know that it’s Christmas.

3. Pace yourself. As hard as it is, you need to strike a fine balance between lingering too long on precious memories and pushing yourself to go too fast. For the former, give yourself two seconds per photo — and only two seconds — to reminisce before deciding where that photo belongs.

Also, set a timer for one to three hours, and be sure to give yourself time to recuperate between sorting sessions.

4. Create a family timeline. Preparing a photo timeline aids in the sorting process as you begin to tackle your collection. I suggest creating a chronological list of events that will help you as you begin uncovering photos, letters, cards and newspapers from the past. By placing them along a single timeline, you’ll start to get a more comprehensive view of your life, even if you don’t know exact dates. A guesstimate will do and will keep you moving forward.

Your timeline can be as simple as drawing a horizontal line across the middle of a piece of paper and adding vertical lines to mark and label events. As you look at the entire collection of photos, determine the oldest photo and the most recent one. This is the time span you’ll plot on your line. Once you have these major markers in place, you can begin to jot other moments or milestones in between.

5. Store your photos safely. Once your photos have been sorted, it’s imperative that you store them correctly. This means putting them somewhere with average temperatures and low humidity — no attics or basements. They should also be stored in containers designed specifically for photo archiving. One reliable source for these is Archival Methods. It offers a variety of acid-free boxes that will preserve your precious memories for decades to come.

6.Get ready to be emotional. The gift of photography is being able to look back on our lives and reflect on the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. The story your photographs tell is one of joy and love, loss and heartache. Ultimately, going through your photos can be a journey of healing. Allow yourself to feel these emotions. It can be extremely helpful to journal how you’re feeling during the process and, if possible, connect with friends and family to discuss the wave of emotions you’re riding.

Organizing your shoebox of photos can feel like an impossible task, but don’t lose sight of the fact that this is important and meaningful work. You are the keeper of your family’s memories and the teller of its stories.

Bio: Cathi Nelson, author of Photo Organizing Made Easy; Going from Overwhelmed to Overjoyed, is the founder of APPO (Association of Personal Photo Organizers), a membership organization dedicated to helping thousands of entrepreneurs from around the globe build successful photo preservation and organizing businesses.

Five Ways To Fauxlaroid

Mine was a Polaroid® One-Step. A black plastic behemoth with a shutter button the size of my whole thumb. And that was the smallest part. Things were big in the ‘90s but this whole thing was obtuse compared to the refined 35mm cameras it sat next to. And while 35mm counterparts were capturing sleek, wide images with a 3:2 ratio that could yield beautiful color prints of all sizes, this thing would spit out one squarish frame of mud. But then came the magic. The print would develop in my hand. Checkmate. That’s how Polaroid cemented itself in our hearts as instantly as it captured each emotion. For all the science behind the technology, it was the magic that we’d come to love.

If you didn’t go for Polaroid back in the day, don’t worry. You can rediscover the format or recreate the iconic look easily.

First, there’s The Impossible Project, a movement to resurrect the Polaroid film factory and sell refurbished Polaroid cameras to an enamored following. You can buy Impossible® film and cameras manufactured to near-original specs right now.

There’s also a new original Polaroid from Polaroid Originals® (these company names are uncanny). The OneStep2® is a slightly more compact, an updated version of the iconic OneStep that still uses the familiar 600-type film. No frills, all retro.

And, while not Polaroids by design, the Fujifilm® Instax® line has successfully cornered the instant market since its introduction a decade ago. There are original, square, and mini formats, a complete line of cameras, and an instant printer to liberate images from your device.

Speaking of devices, did you know there’s a Polaroid smartphone? It doesn’t make polaroid pictures so we won’t get into it. But for any device, there is, of course, an app for that. The Polaroid® Instant Mobile App lets you snap or import a pic and apply the timeless Polaroid format complete with captions scribbled on the border. Available for Android, iOS, and Mac. Unlike actual Polaroids, you can share as many copies as you’d like.

Of course, for the trillions upon trillions of digital images captured via other means that will never know the familiar frame of the beloved Polaroid, we call upon the magic of Photoshop. Easy as:

1. Open image
2. Crop to 3×3”
3. Resize canvas to 3.5×3.5” (center).
4. Resize canvas again to 3.5×4” (add to bottom).

Actual dimensions, for you purists: https://support.polaroidoriginals.com/hc/en-us/articles/115012363647-Polaroid-Originals-photo-dimensions

A batch action for, for you power users, (credit: Maximilian Janicke via Deviant Art): https://rawimage.deviantart.com/art/Polaroid-GENERATOR-V2-118854065

Finally, for the absolute easiest way to fauxlaroid any image, order polaroid-style prints from any device online or in-store with us! That’s right, any selfie or mobile snapshot can be output with the same iconic white border just like the real thing.

#instantlove #instantstyle #polaroid #fauxlaroid