Spring Fling Digital Photo Organizing Challenge #15in15in2015 (Day 11: Backups 2 Cloud)

Just to state what is (hopefully) obvious: your computer hard drive where you just organized all your digital pictures is NOT a backup. That’s the home of your originals. A backup must be a second (or third or fourth) copy of your files. By the way, Facebook is NOT a backup! (I’ll talk more about why in a minute.)

So I scolded you enough in the last post about backing up your precious photo collection. By now you should’ve done your physical backups, but THE CLOUD is an incredible off-site solution you also need to use for archiving. Note I said also, meaning “in addition to,” so if you haven’t done your physical backups yet, quit jumping ahead. Do those right now and then come back here to zap your pics to the heavens!

THE MAGICAL CLOUD
The “cloud” is a magical place that’s not really in the sky. But if it makes you feel better envisioning it there instead of in a bunch of boring server rooms across the country/globe, go for it. This online-only option for storage is remote (not local to your own home/office/computer) and redundant (assuming you’ve picked a reputable cloud service). It’s secure and private (again, assumptions abound but precautions can be taken if concerned).

 The absolute best part about anything stored “in the cloud” is that it’s accessible from anywhere. Well, technically anywhere that can get an internet signal. And since that ranges from airplanes and cruise ships these days, it’s pretty safe to say that “pert near” anywhere counts as close enough. Of course, this high-tech option has a major problem if there’s a power outage or internet service is down. You can’t get at your photos like you could if they were printed out and put in 3-ring-binder-type photo albums on your bookshelf.

However, your photos in the cloud will NOT end up waterlogged from the fire department trying to save your house from burning down (or completely turned into ash dust if they were not successful in the least). Unlike your physical backups, your cloud-backed-up photos cannot be wiped out by tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods and other examples of Mother Nature’s wrath. This is a major advantage of cloud archival storage.

CLOUD CONFUSION
First of all, let me state what should also be obvious…Facebook (or Instagram) is NOT a backup. While it may be “in the cloud,” these social media communities do NOT save your photos at full resolution for easy download at your convenience. That’s how they lose out on being considered a backup resource. Can you download your Facebook photos, posts & entire history? Youbetcha. And you should at least once a year just for the fun of it. Go here to learn where the data is saved, what is saved and how it can be downloaded to your computer as an archive.

Now that you made all your physical backups, you’re probably feeling pretty archive-savvy. Hopefully I don’t freak you out by mentioning the word “cloud” when it comes to backups! Because that magical “place” should definitely be part of your archive strategy. The trick is that it can be a bit overwhelming with all the options out there. The hardest part is trying to figure out which one is right for your situation and making sure everything is set up correctly to do what it should. After that, it’s pretty much on auto-pilot. Get, it clouds, plane…you with me?

“The Cloud” is not really a white puffy shape holding your data, of course. But it is sort of “out there” or “up there.” That’s why it is an excellent segment of your archive strategy — because your physical copies can be destroyed/damaged/stolen/lost/etc much easier than you may realize. Having a whole drawer full of DVD backups won’t save your photos if your whole house goes up in flames. Or gets soaked by the fire department’s hoses trying to put out the fire. Or if a pipe bursts and soaks through the ceiling right onto your computer and where you store all your external hard drives.

Remember how I said those physical backups needed to at least have one copy in an ALTERNATE LOCATION. This is why. No one knows when something bad is going to happen so being prepared in advance is the only way to insure it doesn’t destroy your photo collection too.

Cloud storage is simply the ability to save files on servers in remote locations that can be accessed via the internet from any enabled computer or device. What makes it so convenient is that it’s always there. No need to carry around your external hard drive or pile of DVD cases to have access to all your images at any time in any place.

March 31st is known as WORLD BACKUP DAY! It’s a day dedicated to reminding everyone the importance of backing up their priceless data, primarily photos in our case! Their warning “Don’t be an April fool!” is an annual reminder to do what should be done regularly, but sadly, is not. Learn more about backups and take the pledge with me on this site.

According to Backblaze, 30% of people have NEVER backed up their files. Yet 29% of disasters are caused by accident, 113 phones are lost or stolen every minute, and 1 in 10 computers are infected with viruses each month (sources per World Backup Day website).

For one thing, if you have physical backups stored in the same room/home as your main computer, and something bad happens to your property, BOTH are gone. Whether that be fire, flood, tornado, hurricane, theft, power surge, or other natural or manmade disaster, the point is that your originals (on the computer) AND your copies (on DVDs or an external hard drives) are likely destroyed as well. Double (or triple) bummer.

Sure, you can send the destroyed devices off to Drive Savers, who work miracles on rescuing data (& I highly recommend their expertise if you are up a creek without a paddle), but that involves risk and cost without a guarantee. Are you willing to risk all that just because you’re too lazy to follow a simple archival strategy? Click the banner link to learn more about what they can do and save 10% on any rescues you may need done.

If you follow my 3-2-1 BACK-UP BLAST-OFF plan, you need 3 copies, in 2 different media formats with at least one of those off-site — as a minimum! 3: Technically, the term “copies” would mean 3 versions IN ADDITION TO the original. But I think you are fine having at least a total of 3 — originals plus 2 copies. 2: To get two different media types, you need to mix up your storage choices. In other words, both copies should not be on external hard drives (EHD) due to high failure rates. Instead, you should have one EHD and one set of DVDs or USB flash drives. 1: Now make one of those copies reside off-site in a location far enough away from your primary location that a tornado, hurricane or flood would not ever affect both places at the same time. 

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I’m sure you’ve heard the Benjamin Franklin quote:

“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

Well, I’d like to amend that by adding “data loss” to his list. It’s almost a given that each of us will have at least one data loss (likely due to technological hardware or software failure) in our lifetimes. The only questionable part is when, because you never know when your time has come. So being properly prepared is the only way to survive this calamity.

Everyone asks…can cloud storage count as off-site? Well, technically yes! It is definitely “off-site” and it’s in another media type so that checks off two of the boxes on our 3-2-1 Back-up Blast-off plan! Some experts warn against cloud storage due to its “stormy” issues of security and privacy. Others point out that some cloud companies have come — and gone due to bankruptcy, taking with them your data in some cases.

In my personal (and professional) opinion, the cloud offers an easy, economical, nearly effortless solution to not only backup but also to sync continual changes to an alternate, off-site option that I can access from almost any digital device via the internet. That’s worth it’s weight in gold to me! I can worry less about data security/privacy problems, although some celebrities with photos of themselves in compromising situations would beg to differ. If you don’t have anything to hide, or I should say, if you aren’t afraid to show or share everything you put in the cloud, then no worries.

However, there are plenty of ways you can protect your data in the cloud, such as passwords, encryption, etc. I won’t go into detail in this post but you can search online for assistance in this area.

My number one rule regarding the cloud as a photo backup strategy is that FACEBOOK IS NOT A PHOTO BACKUP SOLUTION! Neither is INSTAGRAM! Gasp! I know many of you are either freaking out or scratching your head right now. Allow me to elaborate. Facebook and Instagram are social media SHARING sites. Facebook currently stores more than 250 BILLION images. And, more than 100 MILLION photos are uploaded to Facebook each day. Wow-za!

If you want to see a cool visual representation of what happens online in just one second, visit this cool webpage for “live” data updates for Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Google and more.

SIDE NOTE: Many of us prefer to have our photos look their very best on Facebook. We’re not satisfied with the extreme compression and down-sampling Facebook has to do to hold all the photos of you and your friends out on the town, cats doing crazy cool things, and selfies, of course! If you are a professional photographer (or want to play one on the internet), you’ll want to follow these specific instructions for how to get your high-quality photos to be well-represented on Facebook. You can also download this guide if you’re a photographer concerned about Facebook’s (lack of) image quality.

Things to keep in mind:

QUALITY LIMITS
Some cloud backup services offer unlimited free storage, but only for photos that don’t go over a certain file-size limit. This means your “backup” is apples for apples. You have the files, but they aren’t the same high-resolution as your originals.

What does this mean? Say you had a JPG photo file that was from your 12 mega-pixel digital camera. Upload that to Facebook and the max you’ll have is 2048×2048 pixels, or 4.19 megapixels. Same goes for Google+. Twitter shrinks a shared photo down to 375×375 pixels or just 0.14 megapixels. And Instagram, the photo-loving site itself, only allows a maximum of 612×612 pixels, or 0.37 megapixels.

Maybe you’ve witnessed this compression phenomenon firsthand when you tried to download a photo or two off a friend’s Facebook timeline, only to find it was too tiny and poor quality for you to print it out or do anything else with it at all. There are a few solutions to working around this fact. One is offered by Facebook when you upload photos into albums at least. Choose the “high quality” option to limit compression. Other experts suggest making your file a PNG24 instead as those are not being compressed. One thing to consider is the higher-quality photo file will cause the page to load slower so keep that in mind and maybe only use it for certain specific photos.

UPLOAD TIME
One issue to consider with a cloud storage solution is the time it takes for your files to be uploaded via the internet. If you are using your home wi-fi to start a backup with a cloud site, it may freak you out how long the initial backup will take. It depends on how much data you have to backup of course, and the speed (or lack thereof) your ISP offers for uploads.

Typically the base level internet packages do not offer much for upload speeds as most of us are more worried about downloading data. But if you intend to do a major cloud backup, it might be worth asking your ISP for an upgraded plan that bumps your upload speeds to a higher level, at least until your initial backup is complete. After that, the incremental backups won’t take nearly as long!

One other way to speed up your uploads is to NOT use wi-fi but plug directly into your router via ethernet cable. This will ensure the highest possible speeds.

CLOUDS NEED INTERNET
One basic fact is that the cloud needs the internet. Without it, you can’t get to heaven, so to speak. Internet access connects you to the cloud. Most of us are pretty connected in today’s world but if you’ll be in a remote area with limited (or slow) internet access, access to cloud storage will be a challenge.

These days you can get online on planes, cruise ships, trains, vehicles, practically anywhere — so this isn’t usually a concern. However, if you are traveling and can’t access free wifi internet, you’ll be paying for service. When this happens, you typically do NOT want to use your expensive data plan for uploading photos. Save that for when you are on your own free (& protected) wi-fi.

What’s awesome about having your photos stored in the cloud is that they are accessible to you from any internet-enabled device. So you can show and share your pics with anyone right from your mobile device (phone or tablet) while you are away from home, visiting family, on vacation or anywhere on the planet.

THE [KITCHEN] SYNC
Cloud storage isn’t the best unless it can sync, meaning update regularly. Say you upload your photos to your cloud provider. Then you go back and edit a few of those photos. You don’t want to risk losing your updates, do you? And you don’t want to manually go to upload the ones you edit each time back to the cloud. You want it to happen auto-magically! And that’s what syncing can do. It checks every so often (some intervals can be determined by you) to see if any files have been changed. If they have, it will upload the new version to the cloud for you. Done deal.

CLOUD CHOICES
I’m not going to delve into great detail over all the options available as this will become its own specific series at a later date. I will mention many of the choices out there and let you do your own research to decide your best solution. You may want to study their privacy policies, security protocols, sharing options, file types, and of course, storage limits.

Google Drive, Crashplan, and Dropbox are three of the heavy hitters for cloud storage. Best of all, these offer automatic uploading and syncing, which are a must-have when it comes to backing up photos. Unless you are the type who manually backs up photos daily. [I doubt those people exist. And if they do, they certainly aren’t reading my Spring Fling Digital Photo Organizing Challenge blog!]

Personally, I use the first two right now. I’ve only used Dropbox for “other” file types and sharing with colleagues but I know many people depend on it for photo storage too.

GOOGLE DRIVE
The giant among all things online is a pro at saving your stuff. Best of all, if you’ve been using Picasa like me to organize your photos, you are automatically linked to Google for a number of awesome features like Web Albums, backups, and so on. Now there is a whole lesson on Google+ and how that works with your photos but if nothing else, Google gives you a way to save your photos on its servers.

iCLOUD FROM APPLE
Signing up gets you 5GB of free storage with options to upgrade for an additional monthly fee. For example, you can pay $19.99/month for 1TB (terabyte) of storage in the U.S. and Canada. However, that number isn’t just for photos — it also includes Mail, Backup, iCloud Photo Library beta, and iCloud drive, as well as a few other apps that use iCloud to keep files up-to-date across devices. None of the media you’ve purchased counts against that storage though.

If you’re an Apple lover like me, you’ve heard of the recently released (in beta) iCloud Photo Library. The Camera Roll and My Photo Stream were merged into a single “All Photos” album on your device. Learn all about its features and functionality here.

AMAZON CLOUD DRIVE
Another giant in the online world, Amazon offers cloud storage (as well as actually operates cloud storage for the large majority of other cloud storage companies). They know the cloud because in many cases, they ARE the cloud!

A recent announcement was made that all can receive unlimited cloud photo storage as an added benefit. You had better be taking advantage of this as well as your free two-day shipping! It’s a no brainer! It has an app that makes mobile uploads (& viewing) a breeze.

The only hitch is that there’s a 5GB limit for videos (& other file types so if you take quite a few clips of action footage, you’ll reach the limit on that. Of course, you can always buy more storage if need be. Since this news came out, I made sure to take full advantage of this solution and am happy about it so far!

CRASHPLAN/BACKBLAZE
A true backup runs like Crashplan or Backblaze. You set it up and after the initial backup upload to their servers, all backups will be incremental — only updating/adding any new files or recently modified ones through syncing. The best part is that you can put these services on “auto-pilot” so you don’t really have to remember to backup. That said, I’d prefer you take matters into your own hands to consciously impact the youth.

TIME MACHINE BY APPLE
Time Machine is backup software through OSX by Apple. It automatically records to an external hard drive that you designate as your backup.

OTHER OPTIONS:

Shutterfly is the photo printing giant of the industry. Founded in 1999, this massive company owns several brands under its umbrella of photo-gift-related publishing. You can enjoy unlimited photo storage for free with no need to purchase to avoid deletion. One really cool feature of Shutterfly is its recent purchase of the This Life app for organizing photos via mobile, desktop and cloud. I’m a definite fan of this system and will be writing a detailed review in the coming months.

Snapfish is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. Owned by printing/computing giant Hewlett-Packard, it still offers unlimited photo storage for free as long as you buy at least one thing — even if that’s one 9-cent photo print — per year.

Dropbox was designed as a file-sharing site — not necessarily a photo-specific site, although it has evolved into a solution that is often adequate for many users wishing to save their photos.

Flickr is an image-hosting site launched in 2004, but acquired by Yahoo in 2005. A new, much-improved user interface design came out about a year ago that brought back many of the fans who’d left. Giving everyone 1000GB of free space, Flickr’s generous storage policy makes it a favorite of photographers and photo fanatics alike.

SmugMug is a 13-year-old family-owned company that stores your photos online, and so much more. Its highlights include the gorgeous gallery sites you can create yourself to feature your photos. You can even opt to sell them should you choose the commerce options in its Business plan for $25/month. The cheapest Basic plan is just $3.34/mo, with a Power user at $5/mo and a Portfolio package for $12.50/mo.

Mylio is not necessarily a cloud hosting solution only. It’s a brand-new photo organizing option that definitely looks like an ideal choice for me. I’m only new to it so I can’t fully vouch for it but intend to “test” it extensively this year. Maybe I’ll be able to do a full review in a few months. I do know that it has the seal of approval from many top photographers in the industry so that should say something.

PictureLife, Trunx, Shoebox and Dropshots are all options with an app that I’ve been using for a while now. I’ll cover these at a later date.

In summary, know that the cloud should be part of your 3-2-1 Back-up Blast-off plan as it satisfies two of the three criteria — a non-physical copy that’s not physically present.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about sharing photos on social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and so on.

Spring Fling Digital Photo Organizing Challenge #15in15in2015 (Day 10: Backups 1)

Back-em up, buttercup! Today we’re talking about the only way you can truly save your photos. Think about all the forward progress you made over the past 9 days. Feels pretty awesome, doesn’t it?

Now imagine all those sorted, named, labeled, captioned, starred, tagged, face identified, album-arranged photos disappearing in the blink of an eye. GONE! One second and all your effort is vaporized. Hurts, huh?

From external hard drives (top shelf) to optical media like CDs & DVDs (bottom shelf), physical backups are an easy, economical solution, but they are only PHASE ONE in your archival strategy!

My goal is to help you avoid the agony of regret by proactively preserving your pictures. To do that, you need to back them up. Sure, you say, duh, I knew that. Oh yeah, well how many of you have actually done it? On a regular basis? With 3 copies in 2 different formats with one being off-site? Yeah, I thought so. Feeling a bit inadequate right now? That’s okay. You’re not alone at all. But we don’t want you to be sob story of what happens when your computer crashes, hard drive fails, tornado wipes out your whole house, or the kids accidentally spill a can of soda over your laptop.

They’re called accidents because they aren’t planned. But you CAN plan on being prepared by taking the steps today to (finally!) get your photos (& other files if you wish) archived.

You must have an archival strategy. This includes not only the choice of media and location of storage solutions, but also the schedule or system for performing regular, routine backups beyond this initial archive of your photo collection.

Would you believe that today’s “Digital Generation” is in danger of losing everything? Their entire life history in photos? While they may be the most photographed generation, they are at risk to have no pictures in a decade? One photographer wrote a thought-provoking blogabout this growing problem. He feels that most of what we shoot today isn’t really important enough to print. Or save. So sad. Hope that’s not the case — and it must not be if you’re here bothering to read this & do my daily steps for 15 days to get organized!

PHYSICAL BACKUPS CAN’T BE BEAT
First of all, let me state what should be obvious…your computer hard drive where you just organized all your digital pictures is NOT a backup. That’s the home of your originals. A backup must be a second (or third or fourth) copy of your files. By the way, Facebook is NOT a backup! (I’ll talk more about that next when I cover DIGITAL backups.)

Anyone remember these? Floppy disks that weren’t even floppy! Only the first larger versions were if you old folks remember that. Then we went to these sturdy plastic versions. But they were replaced by CDs, which then went to DVDs, and now we’re starting to see Blu-Ray discs as an even larger-capacity solution!

Consider the life expectancy of your media choice. If something has an average life span of 5 years, that means HALF of those devices will fail before that! Here in Vegas, we call that “the roll of the dice!” Can you easily make another copy of your media? Can you easily update your backup to add in your newer files? Can you be sure that technology will be around 5 years from now?

EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES
One easy physical way to back up all your photos from your computer hard drive is to use an external hard drive, or EHD. This is like a second computer (minus the operating system & such) so it makes sense to copy your photos onto it.

With the price of EHDs dropping and the capacity rising, you can find a huge terabyte hard drive for less than $70. That’s a small price to pay for the peace of mind and safekeeping of your entire digital photo collection, especially if you consider at least a few of those shots to be pretty priceless!

Most of them simply plug in via USB to your computer, making it fairly simply to copy the files over. And should the need arise, you can easily restore your photos from that EHD backup to a new computer if that’s the case. (Congrats on the new hardware, by the way! I’m jelly! That’s jealous, for you non-hipster lingo peeps!)

Portable hard drives are an ideal peripheral product because they don’t require external power, are small enough to carry conveniently, and work with multiple computers for file sharing/syncing. Most models come with backup software to ensure automatically scheduled backups and file syncing in a compact, phone-sized package. Granted, the smaller they are, they easier they are to lose, or drop — both of which will ruin your backup strategy!

Western Digital is a respected name in data storage. This thin 1 terabyte USB drive with auto backup software is on sale at Amazon for just $65 (Prime eligible)! The 2TB model is priced at $99. Wowza! Click the image to order from Amazon or to shop for other brands, capacities, and styles.

I own numerous external hard drives. My first ones were larger and required a power source. My most-recent ones are thin, tiny and only need USB power. Surprisingly, the smaller ones hold more photos and cost much less than the earlier editions!

The other problem is that some 90% of EHDs will fail. Typically within the five years of life. With. No. Warning. Could be 6 months in, or 2.5 years or 4-plus years. Since you don’t know when it will one day croak, you can’t simply depend on just this backup either. And you have to plan to upgrade your EHDs every couple years. Kind of like trading in your car/phone/computer for a newer, updated model.

By all means, use an EHD, but with caution and care, realizing their days are numbered and you’ll never know when its death will suddenly cost you all of your priceless digital photos. Better yet, get two of them and rotate them every so often, keeping one drive off-site. I’ll talk more about this in a bit.

USB/THUMB DRIVES
You might be lured into thinking a simple USB flash/thumb drive can solve all your problems as a small, economical backup source. And you might be just fine. In fact, some research shows that these are often a very stable storage device with a life expectancy of 5 to 8 years, slightly longer than optical media like the standard DVD.

Until, that is, the USB drive gets lost because it’s so tiny and portable. Or left in a pocket that goes through the washing machine. Or splashed by a spill of coffee or water. In other words, these tiny backups are the ultimate in convenience, but they can also be damaged or lost, effectively deleting all your photos. So this isn’t the only option you should use as a backup either.

OPTICAL MEDIA OPTIONS
If you don’t have a zillion (or so) photos to back-up, you might be able to back them up to optical media such as a CD or DVD. These media are often extremely economical and easy to burn from your computer hard drive. My suggestion is to stick to DVD for the greater file capacity as it holds 4.7GB vs. 700MB on a CD. I’m sure you have more than 700MB of photos. Otherwise you are crazy…go take more pictures! Now! The next step beyond DVD is the Blu-Ray disc that can hold up to 50GB on a dual-layer disc. That’s about 10 standard DVDs or 70 recordable CDs! And there’s talk of even larger capacity discs on the horizon — one company is offering a 100GB version any day now!

THE GOLD STANDARD
When it comes to DVDs, there are plenty of cheap, department-store brands sold in bulk. That said, there are also more-expensive options that are expressly made for archiving. These are often called “gold” DVDs, but the color isn’t the only way you can tell. Usually a premium price tag buys you greater peace of mind that the media will not fail as easily or as soon. Of course, most of them don’t offer a warranty or refund if it does before their advertised life expectancy. And even if they did, it doesn’t mean you get your photos back — just some cash back, which may help you buy file recovery software to try to rescue your lost JPGs. For the sake of today, I’ll keep this positive!

Most DVDs burn data into an organic dye layer that begins to degrade and fade right away, leading to “data rot.” In fact, the National Archives warns that the shelf life of a standard recordable DVD may be as short as 2 years, although a general estimate is 3-7 years on average.

Get Delkin’s Archival Gold DVD-R “100 Year Disc” with Scratch Armor Surface 25-pack spindle for just $79.95 (Amazon Prime).

A Delkin Archival Gold DVD is advertised to last 100 years, while their 25GB Blu-Ray version is promoted with a 200-year life expectancy! According to their website, “Archival Gold is the only storage medium guaranteed 100% uneditable, inerasable and tested to endure up to 200 years, based on the National Institute of Standards and Technology.” Now that’s a few generations worth!

Verbatim claims to be the “Number 1 Optical Brand in the World” as it sells a full-line of discs, including UltraLife™ Archival Grade Gold DVDs for 100-year life. It also offers a Photo DVD-R product specifically for archiving photos. It uses patented AZO™technology to secure the original quality of the digital image, plus a Crystal coating applied to protect the recording layer and label surface from data-damaging scratches.

SET IN STONE
When it comes to archival, stone scribbles have stood the test of time for the most part. Just like cavemen scribed their lives on the walls of their cave, the M-Disc actually etches your data onto a stone-type surface, offering what the company promotes as 1,000-year storage solution. Now that’s what I call long term! I’m a big fan of the M-Disc product line but it does require a compatible drive to burn them so read all about them on their website. Or click the image of the 15-pack spindle below to buy them (& the external drive) on Amazon!

Click to shop for a 15-pack of 25GB M-Disc Blu-Rays & the compatible drive for recording them right on Amazon! And yes, they are eligible for free shipping with PRIME!

R+ OR R- BUT NOT RW
Whether you go with DVD-R or DVD+R depends on your computer and DVD drive. However, it should go without saying not to choose RW discs but if you don’t pay attention, you might end up with a spindle of these. While they are great for storing documents you need to temporarily access and transport, they are terrible for long-term archival storage because they can easily (albeit accidentally) be written over. Does anyone remember the long-ago days of the lowly VCR tape when you’d discover you taped over something else you wanted to keep? Argh! Choose DVD-R or DVD+R only.

OFF-LABEL USE
While I’m a big fan of labeling your backup discs, please be very careful with anything that goes ON the actual disc. You’re better off printing something that goes on the case and using a basic Sharpie pen to identify the contents of the disc. I’ve heard far too many horror stories of paper sticker labels that get ripped up and caught inside your computer’s disc drive, ruining both at once!

Now there are inkjet printable discs that eliminate the potential paper problems of earlier options. Look for this option when purchasing your DVDs. You can design a printed “label” for each DVD that includes a representative photo (or collage), and any text and dates to help identify the photos included on it.

PRINT FILE WINDOW
One thing you’ll want to do besides labeling your actual DVD is printing out the file directory list of what’s on it. To do this, you can use the PRINT SCREEN, PASTE & PRINT process in Windows. Or you can run a command to generate a list.txt file for editing later using thesestep-by-step directions.

On a Mac, it used to be as easy as choosing the Print Window option from the menu bar before OSX came to be. Since then, it requires some jumping through hoops or taking a screen shot to paste into something else so you can print it.

Or you could try out a nifty software app aptly named Print Window that lets you control which folders/files to expand and print, plus adjust the font and size. It has auto-format options for fitting onto a CD jewel case or DVD box case. You can even make a photo proof contact sheet showing thumbnails of all your images! How handy would that be? I’m sold on this idea but will have to try out the free version. The full version is $20 but if it helps me print files & folders for all my archives, including contact sheets of all my images, it would be well worth it. Of course, printing these in color will be rather costly ink-wise, especially if you have as many images as I do. Saving them as a PDF you can open and reference at any time probably makes more sense than a full physical copy.

Picasa’s “Print Contact Sheet” can be a helpful feature! Click here to view it larger.

Better yet, Picasa has a built-in feature to print a contact sheet from a folder. Simply select a certain folder first, then click the FOLDER menu to choose “Print Contact Sheet..” and you’ll see them nicely organized by thumbnails with the album name and date. You’ll have an option to either “shrink to fit” or “crop to fit” the pics into the thumbnails. Click on the other choice to see your options & pick a fave. I noticed it rotates any vertical photos sideways, probably to show enough of the image, although it still bothers me a bit.

DATA CORRUPTION
Any archival solution runs the risk of data corruption, transfer failure or device death/obsolescence. Some experts say you should regularly check your data source by “running” it once in a while to actively seek and open a few files. That way, if you start to see any fishy behavior, you might be able to salvage the majority of your data before the whole thing blows. For your long-term archival storage, the pros suggest occasional testing of the data once every 6 months and migrating to a newer (or just different) media source every 3-5 years.

SAFE STORAGE
Aside from the obvious advice about putting the cap back on USB thumb drives, you’ll need to keep CDs/DVDs in their cases, and carefully handling them by their edges only to avoid fingerprints and scratches.

Don’t forget about storage solutions to keep your special backup disks safe from scratches, extreme temperature swings, dust, and such. Careful handling and using the case is a start. If you end up with a large collection of discs, you’ll need to find a way to store them.

This handsome double-wide CD/DVD storage box safely & smartly stores your archives in a classy way that looks great on display. For less than $10 with Amazon Prime, you can also opt for the one to hold DVDs in their larger box cases.

To be literal, I suppose you could keep them in a fireproof, theft-proof safe in your home. Or better yet, at the bank in a safe deposit box, which gets you the ultimate in protection as well as off-site benefits.

However, you can just keep the cased discs in a cool, dark, dry space, such as your a shelf in your bedroom closet, in a dresser drawer or in a box under a bed.

Do NOT keep optical discs in the garage, basement or attic, as the extreme temperature swings and humidity will degrade the data. Ideally, your data archives need to be kept in a space that’s heated and cooled, depending on your location and season, as well as one that handles humidity. That’s why an off-site storage space won’t work unless it’s an indoor one that’s climate-controlled.

To avoid heat, cold, humidity, dust, debris, scratches, fingerprints, or sunlight, please do NOT store optical discs or delicate drives inside your vehicle, kids’ rooms, bathroom, kitchen, laundry room, outdoor storage shed, shoebox buried in the yard, etc. Try to keep them away from water, dust, bright sunlight, harsh surfaces, kids, and extreme temps.

PHOTO PRINTS
I can’t talk about physical backups without mentioning the lowly photo print! Remember these? Back in the days of film, everyone HAD to print their pictures just to see what you shot. Now it seems like if we’ve “seen” it in our camera or phone, we don’t even bother getting a physical copy to hold. And that’s a crying shame!

Should you (or could you) print ALL of your digital photos? Probably not. I know I couldn’t. I wouldn’t want to pay for all those prints, no matter what the sale offer. Let alone the shipping cost. I also don’t want to pile up a zillion (that’s about how many I have) photo prints that I would then have to sort, organize, label, and store somehow.

It just doesn’t make sense to turn an all-digital collection into a physical prints one, as that has its own issues with space, clutter, and safe-keeping, of course. How many of you have had a toddler tear/Sharpie/crumple/etc a printed photo? So that’s not the only solution either.

But you SHOULD print SOME (or all) of your STARS! If all else failed, and I mean your digital backups on hard drives, thumb drives, DVDs, and such, you’d still have printed copies of your most prized photos. And those can be scanned into digital files again if absolutely necessary. At that point, your slight quality degradation from losing an iteration of your image will be the least of your worries. If this sentence didn’t make much sense to you, that’s okay. It’s just pointing out the fact that a copy of a copy is never as nice as the original. If you’ve ever tried to photocopy a crappy photocopy, you know what I mean. It doesn’t get better, that’s for sure!

I’m not going to analyze or advise on WHO/WHERE to get photo prints made, but I can tell you that the quality and service you’ll get from a local photo retailer (real store run by photo experts) will always outperform any online option or discount department store. You can Google side-by-side comparisons of quality (paper and color and clarity) for about any mainstream service on the market. You do want the colors to be true and sharp. And if the paper isn’t archival-quality, it won’t last as long as it should, defeating the point of having it as a backup to your backups. But if you aren’t prepared to handle the prints when they come into your home, you’ll soon be looking for blogs on how to organize prints. What’s that you say? You already have that problem too? No worries. I’ll be covering that soon but this is my primary concern — and should be yours too!

But the primary point for printing your photos is to ENJOY them, share them and show them off. Put them in frames around your home and office. Don’t let them be held hostage on your hard drive! Or be an unknown entity on a shiny circular DVD. Let them come to life in your own life!

I’ll talk more about ideas for printing beyond the basic 4×6 photo print but if you do nothing else, printing your starred favorites and putting them out to be seen and shared will still be considered a victory!

Groovebook is a great phone app to quickly (& cheaply) print the pictures off your mobile phone! Each month, you can get 100 pics printed (& shipped to your door) for $2.99. Try them out for a free Groovebook with my KRUSE58 code! I’ve been doing this a full year now, and many months I end up ordering a couple to get all mine printed.

GET IN THE GROOVEBOOK
I’ve become a fan of the Groovebook app, which was recently bought out by Shutterfly after appearing on the TV show Shark Tank. For $2.99/month, it prints 100 photos from my mobile phone and ships them to my door. It’s super simple to select the ones you want to upload, and then the app automatically processes the print order on your monthly deadline day and ships you this fun booklet of your prints.

Each print has a perforated edge so you can choose to keep them in the book as a whole, like a mini photo album of sorts. Or, tear out the ones you want to share with loved ones, frame or scrapbook. Photo quality is not the highest but it’s an almost hands-off, relatively instant way to get pictures printed off my iPhone at least. I’ll talk about this more in a later post about playing & publishing your pictures. Use CODE (KRUSE58) to get a free Groovebook sample of your own!

PHYSICAL LIMITS
Obviously, any physical backup system is at risk for natural disasters, including fire, flood, tornado/hurricane, theft, and unsupervised toddlers. So even if you have your photos on your main computer hard drive, an external hard drive, a set of DVDs, flash drives and prints organized into albums…you’ll lose them all in an instant with Mother Nature’s wrath or a homeowner incident if they are all kept in the same general location (your home or office).

Drive Savers is a trusted name in data recovery so if you have something happen, call them right away! Here they explain the 3 main types of catastrophic circumstances — physical, logical (if you can call accidentally deleting your photos “logical”) & what I call, Mother Nature’s wrath. They also have a fun part of their site called the “Museum of Bizarre Disk-asters” highlighting catastrophic circumstances & their rescues! Learn all about them by clicking this image.

Redundancy (multiple copies) is a key strategy in archiving but if all those copies are in the same physical geographic location, you’re risking it all. “Colocation” is a technical term that can refer to off-site data storage but it applies to your own photo backup too. Move at least one copy of your backups to a second location that’s outside your primary computer’s location. Even better is to make sure your backup-to-the-backup is in an off-site location that’s outside your same region. In other words, a tornado/hurricane/earthquake can wipe out a stretch of a town that could include BOTH your home and your mom’s house if you’re only a few blocks away. Think further out like a different town, or state! Sure, you may have to ship it there or deliver it when you go to visit but you can rest easy knowing that the same natural disaster is not likely to affect both copies!

Click to buy the perfect cases for all your CDs & DVDs! Slim to fit more on a shelf & colorful for coordinating your files! Image links to this best-selling product on Amazon, currently just $10.48 & Prime eligible!

JUST IN CASE
The easiest way to keep your optical media safe is to store them in cases. If you buy the economical disc spindle, you’ll want to buy coordinating cases. There are now slim versions that don’t take up as much space on a shelf.

You can also store them inside vinyl sleeve pocket sheets that go into 3-ring binders. Some are made to look extra nice like high-end photo albums you wouldn’t mind looking at on your bookshelf or desk.

Other disc storage devices depend on how many you’ll need to hold. Always buy more space than you currently have discs so there’s room to grow/add as you continue your archiving efforts. Tomorrow I’ll cover the digital side of archiving by backing up to the CLOUD! Don’t worry, I’ll walk you through it until you understand.

Want a fancy but durable, dust-free case for 80 discs? Here’s one economical ($14.89) version on Amazon Prime.

Upgrade to gorgeous shelf storage for your DVDs/CDs with these leather-look albums on Amazon. The pages inside are sleeves for discs so each album holds many discs.

DAY 10 — 15 MINUTES. LET’S GET PHYSICAL WITH OUR BACKUPS!

Set your phone’s timer or stopwatch for 15 minutes and determine your backup strategy by deciding how you’ll backup your photos — to CD/DVDs, flash/thumb drives, external hard drives. Decide which photos to print and how you plan to print.

Now open Picasa and click on at least one album or folder. Under the TOOLS menu, choose “Back Up Pictures…” to then see all your available photos to select for backup. After you check all the boxes for the ones you want (or just “select all”), Picasa will total up how many GBs you’ll need, even how many DVDs or CDs that would take. Of course, if you backup to a large-enough external hard drive or flash drive, you’ll only need to do the backup “BURN/COPY” process once.

Be sure to create a backup “set” to identify which pictures, where to back them up, whether to include all files, all pictures (no videos), or just JPEGs with camera information. I recommend ALL to be safe, but you can test how big the backup would be with the various options. Maybe you’ll just want to backup videos elsewhere or whatever may be. After you create this “set,” you can choose it next time to do an “incremental backup,” meaning just the ones that have been added or modified since the initial backup. Yes, you’ll be revisiting this step in the future so get familiar with it!

In summary, your DAY 10 DUTIES:

1. DETERMINE YOUR ARCHIVAL STRATEGY BY CHOOSING THE MEDIA TYPES YOU WILL USE FOR BACKUPS.
2. ORDER ANY PERIPHERAL PRODUCTS YOU NEED FOR ARCHIVING (CD/DVD/BLU-RAY DISCS & RECORDING DRIVES, EXTERNAL/PORTABLE HARD DRIVES, USB FLASH DRIVES, CASES & STORAGE SOLUTIONS).
3. OPEN PICASA AND LOOK UNDER THE TOOLS MENU FOR “BACK UP PICTURES.”
4. CREATE A BACKUP SET TO CHOOSE THE MEDIA & FILE TYPES, THEN SELECT ALL THE ALBUMS & FOLDERS TO BURN/COPY YOUR BACKUP TO THE SOURCE YOU CHOOSE.
5. AFTER CREATING/BURNING MULTIPLE COPIES OF YOUR ARCHIVE, PUT THEM IN APPROPRIATE LOCATIONS USING PROPER SAFE STORAGE SOLUTIONS. 
6. MARK YOUR CALENDAR (SCHEDULE A REMINDER IN YOUR PHONE) TO SYNC UPDATED PHOTOS TO YOUR BACKUP SOURCES & SWAP OUT THE DEVICES AS NEEDED.

WHOA WARNING
Be sure to backup your ALBUMS as well as your folders! Because, if you remember, the FOLDERS are where your photos actually reside. Your ALBUMS need to be saved too so Picasa can retain all your organization as well. Otherwise if you load these onto another computer later, all that effort will be lost. You’ll still have your JPGs of course, and the tags that you identified them with, but not all that helpful organization and details from your ALBUMS. You can also backup your PEOPLE albums, or FACE/NAME tags. Re-read my post on that to make sure your faces get saved correctly WITH the photo file so you don’t lose all that priceless “people” info!

TALKING TIME LIMITS
This step might take some time as burning optical media discs depends on the speed of the drive. It may be something you let run overnight or while you go somewhere until it finishes. It may also take a little time messing around with printing your files/folders to go with the discs and drives. Unless you’ve already used this feature, your first few will take longer but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be able to archive as fast as can be.

Remember, this is your initial backup so it will take the longest. After this, your backups will only be incremental, meaning much less waiting while your files copy! Unless, of course, you wait far too long (like 6 months to a year) before doing another backup…then you’ll have to wait a while too!

© Brenda Kruse and PhotoOrganizingPro.com, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Brenda Kruse and PhotoOrganizingPro.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Day 3: Organize Your Digital Photos in Just 15 Minutes in 15 Days in 2015 (#15in15in2015)

Woohoo! It’s February 1^st! A new month! We made it through the first month of 2015 already. Now it’s time to get serious about your goals and resolutions. I mean the ones you can actually accomplish — not that crazy long list you ambitiously wrote out while drinking wine on New Year’s Eve in your PJs.

If organizing your digital photos was NOT on that list, I’m begging you to put it on there. Now. Because honestly, you’re already on Day 3 of a 15-day plan that will show you the way to catch up on the overwhelming backlog and set the stage for managing the click-happy quota each month. You got this! You could even cross it off the list by Valentine’s Day!

Technically, you should wait until New Year’s Eve to see if you kept it up for the next 11 months but I suppose you could just do another #15in15in2015 at year-end to pull a major catch-up and still heroically achieve this goal. Not ideal but better than where you are today, right? Just keepin’ it real.

What’s your vision for Valentine’s Day? I don’t want to hear about your romantic date plans (or lack thereof)! I’m talking about what you want to achieve in the next two weeks with your digital photo organization. Do you have lofty goals or would you be thrilled with a partial success? Think about it for a few minutes.

Visualize with me…it’s Thursday, February 19th. Your digital photos are now all organized so when everyone starts posting their #ThrowbackThursday pics on Facebook, you no longer groan, sigh & eye roll out of feigned annoyance, mostly from the fact that you had no clue how to find those old pics to share online.

Now let a big grin fill your face as you realize those days are over because now you are totally prepared to participate in all future #tbts or #FlashbackFridays. You’ll be able to quickly locate any other “antique” JPG someone asks about. You simply open your PICTURES folder, choose an older YEAR folder and browse by thumbnail to find an image you’re willing to put in front of the whole planet. It won’t take you long to find a specific picture, although you may find yourself spending more time strolling down memory lane!

QUICK RECAP
We’ve gathered all your digital photo files into one hard drive. We’ve put them all into one main folder. We’ve separated and sorted those into year and month folders. Not bad. Some of you may be tempted to stop here but this is just the tip of the iceberg!

DATES + DETAILS = TOTAL MEMORY RECALL
Unless you’re one of those crazy date-recall people who can remember exactly what they were doing, wearing, and eating on any date in their past, I’m assuming you need some help remembering beyond just hearing the date, which is simply a set of numbers. As we age, those tend to blur together so having specifics tied to the date helps improve recall.

Today we’re going to add in those memory joggers to the folder name to help you (and anyone else) identify the photos inside it WITHOUT opening it up to view them first. Trust me, your future brain will thank you for doing this step!

SUB-DIVIDING SUCCESS
At a minimum, you should have 12 monthly folders in each year folder. If you’re anything like me (and I’d like to think there are at least a few other camera-crazy people out there), you take so many photos that each folder/album for the month would be so ginormous that it’s too much to scroll through them all. You need to divide them up, especially if your month included a significant event like a birthday, wedding, vacation, special school activity, sports performance or anything that generates a large number of photos itself.

In my photo collection history, I’ve noticed January and November tend to be “light” months for me photo-quantity-wise so my pictures can fit in a general group.  Yet in some months such as April and October, when my kids have birthdays, or summer with vacation or December with Christmas, I may have 5 or even 10 sub-divided folders. There are no rules or limits. You make as many as you need to feel comfortable, although I wouldn’t bother with a folder that has fewer than say a dozen pics in it unless they just don’t fit into any other album. Ideally, most months will have more than one event or theme folder inside.

FILENAMES FIRST
First we need to talk about some rules for naming files on computers. Because unlike simply writing whatever we want on Post-It notes or on the backs of the actual photo print, we have to follow some specific conventions that will ensure our files will properly display today and many tomorrows into the future.

PUNCTUATION PROBLEMS
Remember how I told you to use either dashes or underscores instead of spaces? Technically, you can also use parentheses marks if you’re feeling punctuationally frisky. Even though they are allowed, I would avoid forward, straight and back slashes (/ | \) as those are used in programming and on the web, and the same goes for periods. I know that doesn’t leave much creativity, does it? Let’s just agree to be either dash or underscore folks, po-tay-to, po-tot-to. End. Of. Story.

DON’T CAP IT
As for capitalization, it’s really a matter of personal preference for the most part, although some programmers/coders would beg differently. In normal use, I tend to like the initial cap to improve readability over all lowercase, but again, the internet prefers — and defaults to — lowercase so if you’re overly cautious, stick with that. If you don’t mind taking a few risks, throw in a few caps & hopefully it won’t ever hurt compatibility.

THE LONG & SHORT OF IT
Now to the next question you’re likely to ask…how LONG can my filename be? If you’re old school, you might remember the DOS-imposed character limits, so now you automatically abbreviate your filenames into overly covert codes that are hard to guess by anyone but you. Not good. And not necessary.

Today’s computers CAN accept a lot more characters. If you Google it, you may read that they can handle 256 but that’s not for the FILENAME alone. That’s for the whole path, which also includes folder names of where it exists on your computer. So don’t go crazy spelling everything out in uber-detail either.

The best bet is a compromise of common sense. Enough to make sense to someone other than you and yet not too long that it gets cut off either. Some experts say beyond 63 characters are at risk so stick to fewer than that. (For reference, that previous sentence was 63 characters long if you took the spaces out. And no, I didn’t plan it that way when I wrote it, I’m just THAT good! Besides, I doubt most of us would make a filename THAT long, right?

THE 5 WS
Anyone in journalism or elementary school writing remembers the 5 Ws of who, what, when, where and why. We probably only need four because the WHEN is already answered by the folder name we’ve already created, and the photo file itself is dated as well. So that leaves the who, what, where and why as possible questions to answer in our filename to leave clues for what photos are inside the folder.

Let’s take a vacation as an example because many of us tend to take more photos while on a trip. I’m definitely very snap-happy and can easily bring home +1000 pics in a week on a couple cameras plus phones!

JPG VACAY
When you want to look back on the trip, it becomes helpful to have them separated by day and location anyway, especially if you visited different sites each day. Instead of having a single folder called 2014-04_CA_SpringBreak with 1500 photos in it, I separate it by daily activity so each album has 100-200 photos in it, which is still too many but it isn’t as large or overwhelming as the whole vacation at once.

• 2014-04-CA_SpringBreak_Day1_SanDiego
• 2014-04-CA_SpringBreak_Day2_SeaWorld
• 2014-04-CA_SpringBreak_Day3_Zoo
• 2014-04-CA_SpringBreak_Day4_OceanPier
• 2014-04-CA_SpringBreak_Day4PM_SunsetCruise
• 2014-04-CA_SpringBreak_Day5_Coronado_Bahia

Now if you’re paying close attention, you should cry foul and say, but Brenda, you included “day1” and such, which is the same as WHEN and that’s already covered, isn’t it? And I’d say, yes, sort of, but to me, the specifics of the order of our trip were important to me in regard to the itinerary flow rather than the exact calendar date. By listing the location destination of each day’s activity, I also included the where, which in this case also answers the what, and why. Of course, if you have a couple “boring” days photo-quantity-wise, you can just group those together like “Days1-3.” Or maybe your vacation adventure could be sorted into 4 folders — one each for snorkeling, golfing, deep-sea fishing & a general catch-all for the rest. These are just ideas; make the system work for you!

IT’S WHO & WHAT YOU KNOW
Maybe I should give you another example that involves people instead of places. How about kids and sports or school activities? Want to be able to find the photos of your son’s basketball season? 2015-01-Kyan_Basketball_Bolts_NYS-Rec would be how I include photos of my son’s basketball team named the Bolts that’s part of the NYS recreational league. See how I included hints of that info in there?

Granted, it may not seem to matter much now as it’s only his first season in basketball but maybe by the time he’s a senior in high school, he’ll have been on multiple club, traveling, rec and school leagues, so I’ll definitely appreciate the specifics. And years from now, having the team name in the folder title would be a helpful memory for us both as it’s not shown on their jerseys.

So you are thinking ahead to the future and trying to second-guess yourself (& anyone else) who will be inheriting your digital files. Give them every clue you can now!

Here are two more examples just to show you other ways this works for me regarding my kids’ birthdays:

• 2014-04-Kyan-9thBday-FriendParty-MinecraftTheme (from the party only)
• 2014-04-Kyan-9thBday-OtherFun
  (includes all other birthday-related photos that were NOT from that party)

DAY 3: 2/1/15: 15 MINUTES — MOVING FROM SPEED DATING TO DETAILING!

Set your phone’s timer or stopwatch for 15 minutes and start adding DETAILS to the names of your dated folders of photos. Keep the date listed first and remember to maintain the dashes or underscore system you started.

In your details, you should think of adding the primary focus of which person, place or purpose for the photos. Use shorter words or abbreviations to keep filename lengths within reason. For example, use “grad” instead of “graduation” or “wed” instead of “wedding.” Obviously, there is no need to include your location/where in your filename if your photos were taken at or around home. Save that for specifying locales outside your usual “neighborhood” to make it easier to find your travel photos.

Don’t get stressed out trying to come up with your folder labels. You can always modify them later if you change your mind or want to add a detail. You also don’t need to list everyone who is pictured in the photos, but if the event was focused on a certain person, list them (Kiersten-guitar-recital). In a few days, I’ll show you an incredible face-recognition feature that will help you find people in your photos. For now, emphasize the purpose for taking these pictures (or place if helpful).

A well-structured folder organization system labeled with detailed filenames will give you the power of your computer’s “search” function to quickly locate all photo folders that match your desired keyword. You could search for “recital” on your computer’s finder/explorer to see the dated folders that include it in the name. From there, you could narrow it down by the folder’s filename date or simply look at the pics inside to make sure you’ve found the ones you were looking for. These steps may take you some time up front now, but they will save you from hours of frustration in the future from hunting for the photo files you want to find!

In summary, your DAY 3 DUTIES: 

1. LOOK AT YOUR JANUARY 2015 PHOTO FOLDER TO DECIDE IF YOU NEED TO SEPARATE ANY OF THEM INTO SUB-FOLDERS & CREATE SPECIFIC NAMES WITH ADDED DETAILS.
2. NOW START WITH DECEMBER 2014’S FOLDER & WORK YOUR WAY BACK THROUGH LAST YEAR, MOVING PHOTOS INTO NEW SUB-FOLDERS & DETAILING FILENAMES AS NEEDED TO HELP BREAK BIG BATCHES INTO MORE-MANAGEABLE PIECES.
3. GOT THE HANG OF IT? DON’T STOP! CONTINUE DETAILING YOUR PHOTO FOLDERS OF PAST YEARS UNTIL YOU’VE FINISHED LABELING YOUR ENTIRE PHOTO COLLECTION.

WHOA WARNING
In doing this whole date-driven sorting process, we’re assuming one big thing — that the dates of your photos are correct. That means your camera’s date is set correctly. If it is NOT at this time, please go change it immediately. Talk about confusing a whole future generation — having digital photos that appear to be made from 1997!?!

If you wish to have location data saved with each image, be sure to turn on your camera’s GPS setting, if available and so desired. Just so you know, you can keep this info off your images as they are taken for added security when sharing on social media sites, and simply add the geotag metadata later in post-processing for your own archival files. I know, I used some big words there. Bear with me, we’ll cover that in a couple days.

TALKING TIME LIMITS
Again, it’s hard to say if you needed the whole 15 minutes to do this task. Hopefully you took somewhere between 15 seconds and 15 hours. The point is to get it done in brief bits without hating your screen time by binging on a nonstop marathon. I’m sure you’d rather spend time on Netflix, Pinterest or Facebook for your excessive online addictions instead of dealing with your JPG filenames and locations on your hard drive. Don’t blame you one bit. Here’s what happens when you have too much free time to play around on Pinterest, for example. Click on the pic below to see the snack-stadium photo larger on Pinterest!

SUPER BOWL
I don’t live under a rock. In fact, I live in Vegas so you can BET on the fact that I know it’s the Day of the Big Game. That means you can either do your 15 minutes BEFORE THE GAME starts, DURING THE GAME if you’re not a fan of either team (or the sport itself – gasp!), or DURING HALFTIME if you don’t mind missing the entertainment and a few commercials. In fact, if you’re a sports widow and need a productive project, feel free to tackle this one. I’ll definitely BET on the fact that you’ll WIN the game of organizing your digital photos with me as your coach!

© Brenda Kruse and PhotoOrganizingPro.com, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Brenda Kruse and PhotoOrganizingPro.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Day 2: Organize Your Digital Photos in Just 15 Minutes in 15 Days in 2015 (#15in15in2015)

You’re back! I’m glad you weren’t too overwhelmed by yesterday’s #15in15in2015 kickoff at the Photo Organizing Pro blog in honor of my birthday. Since we had to cover some initial housekeeping yesterday because it was the first post of the series, today we’re getting right into the nuts and bolts, or should I say, file cabinets, drawers, hanging folders, and manila file folders. Yep, I’m using a visual reference from the physical paper world to help you think about how to handle your digital life.

FILE CABINET FOR JPGS
The file cabinet is your computer hard drive’s PICTURES folder. The file cabinet drawers represent each YEAR of your photo collection. Hanging folders serve as the MONTHS in your collection. And inside each month, you can add further detail with a manila file folder that specifies events, people, and places.

These themed topics are usually the major milestones and moments that we mostly photograph in our lives. Think birthdays, weddings, graduations, holidays and vacations. Although frankly our “everyday” moments are quickly becoming just as photographed thanks to Instagram’s plethora of cat & coffee candids, so maybe you’ll want a generic “catchall” folder for each month’s “miscellaneous” moments too.

If you think of organizing your digital files as if you would paper ones, it’s pretty simple to determine the basic structure for your folders and JPGs. The best part is that once you’ve established the system once, it’s a cakewalk to maintain as you add photos and grow your collection. Not to mention the fact that you’ll be able to find a photo you want much faster than before, if you even could before! And that’s the true beauty of a well-named chronologically based folder organizing system.

But wait, you whine! That’s not how my brain works! I can’t remember what year we visited Disneyland for Spring Break, this system will never do the trick for me. Slow down, I’m not done. There’s more to it than dates. We’ll add details to jog your memory. And maybe searchable keywords later too. Relax and trust my system. Let’s learn more before you jump ship.

2N = NAMING & NUMBERING
The 2Ns are the key to organizing and the secret to finding a photo sooner than later! Without proper naming of files, the computer’s default to prioritize numbering will throw off the best attempts at organizing. You’ll see why in a minute. Do not be afraid to rename folders! It can be done and undone multiple times over until you get a naming scheme that works the way your brain thinks. Don’t just use what you read online or in a book, or go blindly with whatever some organizing pro says (unless it’s me…ha!). Try out this theory on your own photo collection. Test it on a small batch first to see how it suits your situation. Are the names/terms ones you’d normally use? Does it offer enough variety or flexibility to adapt as needed? Is it overly complex to integrate or far too simple to really make an impact? Don’t be afraid to make a hybrid of a couple styles to best match your specific needs. It’s not a “one size fits all” but if you don’t have a preference that you know of yet, I do recommend you try these dated (& eventually detailed) folders.

APRIL FOOLS FIRST
You’re not a fool but your computer will always start the year in April if you label folders using only words because it sorts alphabetically. To make January show up before April in your list of photo folders, you have to follow my specific naming structure for them to be displayed in order on your computer. That means using two-digit dates, such as 01 for January so it is listed numerically before the alphabetical leaders of April and August.

02-TO-DO
My other “rule” is to re-use the year in your folder name as well because once the files are moved out of that YEAR folder, that info won’t be as obvious anymore. So the best folder name would be 2015-01 then 2015-02 and so on.

TO-DASH OR_UNDERSCORE SPACES
That is the question. While computers of our past did not like spaces in folders & filenames, today’s can handle it just fine. However, tech experts recommend naming files shorter terms tied together with either dashes/hyphens or underscores because the internet does not like spaces. In fact, it turns them into these — %20. So to dash-or-not-to-dash. Or dash_or_not_to_dash. These are your choices. Or I guess if you want to be a renegade, you could use “dash or not to dash” as a filename. I’ll never really know but the web might wreck your well-laid plans. I highly suggest you start with one way that you like looking at and stick with it forever after. It’s a personal preference so pick a way and there you’ll stay.

We’ll discuss other rules for naming files when we add more details, but for now, our folder names are just fine with numbers — and dashes or underscores.

DAY 2: 1/31/15: 15 MINUTES — THE “YEARS & MONTHS MAKE & MOVE” PROCESS

Set your phone’s timer or stopwatch for 15 minutes and start making new folders within your YEAR folders for the MONTHS. Don’t forget to follow my specific naming structure in order to keep them displayed in order on your computer.

You already have a 2015 folder, right? And your January photos should be in it, right? (If not, please do this first). Adding a sub-folder of 2015-01 becomes home for your most-recent pics. Any photos you shoot yet today will go in there too once you transfer them to your computer. And starting tomorrow, you’ll put the February photos where? In the 2015-02 folder you made inside the 2015 folder you say? Why that’s 100% correct? You got an A+ on your pop quiz!

Now guess what you get to do? More of the same! Go back through 2014 working your way backward through the past year month by month. Using the year and 02-digit months to name folders, you’ll fill them with your specifically dated digital photos.

Don’t take time to look too closely at your photos, delete doubles or worry about editing at this time. Your only goal is to get them quick-sorted into their date/name folder hierarchy.

Go back as far as time allows. If you didn’t finish in the allotted 15 minutes, try to find another 15-minute session to “file” your digital files in their right file cabinet drawers and hanging folders.

In summary, your DAY 2 DUTIES:

1. FIND YOUR PICTURES/MY PHOTOS FOLDER & MAKE A 2015 FOLDER (if you didn’t over-achieve yesterday), THEN A JANUARY (2015-01) FOLDER INSIDE THAT ONE.
2. MOVE ALL JANUARY 2015 PICS INTO THE NEW FOLDER.
3. CREATE A 2014 FOLDER INSIDE THE MAIN “PHOTOS” FOLDER.
4. NOW MAKE YOUR MONTHLY FOLDERS FOR 2014 & MOVE YOUR PHOTOS INTO THEM. VIEW YOUR PHOTOS AS A “LIST” & SORT BY DATE TO EASILY SELECT THE BATCHES FOR EACH FOLDER.
5. IF YOU STILL HAVE TIME OR ARE FEELING AMBITIOUS, REPEAT THIS “YEAR & MONTHS MAKE & MOVE” PROCESS FOR ALL OTHER YEARS YOU HAVE PHOTOS ON YOUR HARD DRIVE.

WHOA WARNING
What if you know you have photo files on your hard drive that are NOT showing the date the photo was taken? Maybe they list the date they were scanned or the date you renamed or edited them once before? If you know the year/month and can quickly move it into the right folder, go for it. If you aren’t sure, leave them loose in the main PICTURES/PHOTOS folder or better yet, create a new sub-folder inside it called 00-DATES (so it will always be at the top of your list) to remind you to investigate at a later date. Ha, we can call it Date-Gate!

While we’re tackling the marathon of organizing your digital photos, we’re doing it in short sprints of 15-minute work sessions. No need for endurance training to survive the #15in15in2015 program from Photo Organizing Pro!

© Brenda Kruse and PhotoOrganizingPro.com, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Brenda Kruse and PhotoOrganizingPro.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Day 1: Organize Your Digital Photos in just 15 Minutes in 15 Days in 2015 (#15in15in2015)

Happy birthday to me! No seriously, today is my anniversary of another batch of birthday-cake photo opps! I thought it’d be fun date to kick off my new PhotoOrganizingPro blog & my new mini series (#15in15in2015). Another reason to eat cake & say cheers with a raised glass, right?

My 1st birthday cake photo opp! I look pretty mesmerized by the candle. Imagine how much I’d stare at all the light from 43 candles?!

Truth be told, the timing is also tied to January’s ambitious New Year’s resolutions & National Get Organized Month. Although I delayed it near the very end, after your overly ambitious rose-colored glasses view of other resolutions has been dimmed by reality & you’ve already skipped some days at the gym, yelled at the kids & ordered take-out instead of using your crockpot once a week.

Because what I’m proposing may only start with 15 minutes over 15 days to organize your digital photos, but managing your digital life is a LIFELONG HABIT! Before you roll your eyes & think you’ve accidentally landed on another “eat kale daily” smoothie blog, I’ll drop the preaching & get into the good stuff. But I’m not kidding that you’ll have to do a little upkeep on a regular basis…otherwise you’ll need to do my #15in15in2015 program a couple times this year. You over-achiever, you.

Despite the fact that today is MY birthday, I’m not just letting you all eat cake & do nothing hard. That comes at the END of the 15 days — yes, by Valentine’s Day you are enjoying the sweet taste of success knowing your JPGs are in order!

Imagine celebrating with your favorite splurge chocolate treats without a second thought of guilt because all your photos are finally off your phones and cameras at long last, and actually sorted into organized, labeled folders that are even backed up. Shut the front door. And pass me the sea salt & caramel seahorse-shaped Godiva please.

Come Valentine’s Day, I give you permission to enjoy all the chocolate you can eat as a reward for getting your digital photos organized!

BEFORE YOU BEGIN:

MAKE SPACE. While this may seem like a common-sense point, I’m stating the obvious for those of you who did not have it dawn on them earlier. If your hard drive is maxxed out already, you are at greater risk for drive failure, and probably insanity from working on a slower, overloaded machine.

Analyze the available space on your main/primary computer’s hard drive. You’ll need enough room to put (hopefully ALL?) your photos on it first to use as your workspace for organizing and sorting. Then you can safely (& thoroughly) archive them and then confidently delete the files to reclaim more room. Before you start this process, you can take a FEW QUICK minutes to delete files you KNOW you don’t need. Don’t spend hours on it. Or search out hidden files to delete. In fact, if you aren’t 100% sure, DON’T delete! It’s easiest to pull off large videos/movie files and music onto flash drives as a backup or at least a temporary move for the next two weeks as we work through the photo organizing and archiving process.

If you absolutely cannot free up enough space on your computer’s hard drive, I recommend using an external hard drive (EHD) for this process. You can buy/find one large enough to hold your entire collection for a rather economical price. You’ll have to make a few adjustments to my steps along the way but you should be just fine. And you’ll already have an external backup done. Well, sort of.

DIGITAL = NO PHYSICAL CLUTTER
But you know one really awesome benefit of being in a DIGITAL organizing class instead of one dealing with physical print photos? This digital one doesn’t take up ANY extra space outside of your usual existence! Technically, it’s just a bunch of 1s and 0s on your computer’s hard drive, although you mostly see a long list of nonsense filenames like P1057247742.JPG and IMG_8396.JPG and DSCF2705.JPG.

No need to unearth boxes and totes from the basement, attic, garage and Aunt Edna’s house to take up tons of space in your home office or spare bedroom. No need to spread them out all over the kitchen table so you can’t feed the family until you’re done sorting. Or feeling frustrated or rushed when you have to shove them all back in the box in a hurry just to make a meal or do homework. No mess. No rushing. No clutter. No chaos. No upset family members or spouses (at least over the photo organizing mess or clutter anyway!).

None of this mess for you! We’re only dealing with digital! So if you’ve already scanned your old print photographs, fabulous! Then we can sort & organize them right along with your newer digital snapshots. If not, stay tuned to this blog for future assistance on dealing with prints. Or contact me ASAP for a scanning & sorting quote.

So enjoy the ease of working with digital files vs. print photographs in this way. Does it have disadvantages? Sure, but we’re not going to discuss them because I’m only asking for you to give me 15 minutes for 15 days and I have a no whining policy.

After all, anyone can handle doing something slightly uncomfortable for a 15-minute stretch, right? And it’s only 15 days in a row! Could you keep going after that? Knock yourself out. I may even throw in a couple bonus days at the end, but this isn’t a year-long ordeal or anything. Not even a 30-day commitment. So cowboy up, folks. You can deal.

WHY TAKE PICS?
First let’s touch on why we take photos. Duh, because we don’t want to forget the moments, right? I’d also say because we can. Today, almost every one of us owns a high-end digital camera thanks to our smartphone, except for those few folks with flip phones. (I mean, really, people, why bother?!) Most families also have at least one point-and-shoot pocket camera, if not a fancy-pants DSLR too.

That wasn’t the case “back in the day.” Anyone remember film? With limits of 24 exposures? For you youngsters, it’s why your iPhone stores your pictures in a Camera ROLL, because film from the olden days came rolled in a small canister. Seriously. Google it. And I won’t get into the woes of the world not printing any digital photos but you know it’s a fact. Can you hold up to the screen the last 4×6 you printed? Yeah, I don’t see anything. Point made.

These days we’re seeing trends that the “real” camera is often left at home (or even in the closet), leaving our ever-present smartphones to capture our regular daily life & often our major milestone moments as well. After all, we usually have it with us ALL the time — even in the bathroom, which can be a bad thing, and that leads me to my next point.

WHY SAVE PICS?
Why on earth do we need to bother with backing up digital photos? Because, heaven forbid, what if the worst happens?!? Remember the bathroom where we usually bring our phones? In that instant moment of regret with the “pants pulldown backpocket kerplunk” or any other number of digital disasters awaiting our JPGs, such as accidental deletion by the toddler you’re trying to entertain the backseat/church/checkout line (or really anywhere). Or the devices we’ve lost or “left behind” at the park/bar/Walmart (depending on your stage in life).

Whether it goes for a swim, takes a dunk, gets splashed, or just goes dead into brick mode for no apparent reason when updating, sometimes the tech geeks at the cell phone store can save your digital butt IF you were being backed up by accident (Hallelujah for Big Brother!). Otherwise you’ve now become “A Statistic,” a sob story, and have learned a hard lesson learned about archiving, a.k.a. backing up your butt, formerly called CYA (Google it if you must).

DAY 1: 1/30/15: 15 MINUTES!
Set your phone’s timer or stopwatch for 15 minutes & ready, set, race! Run like a mad woman (or man) all over the house to GATHER ALL (yes, I mean ALL) digital photos! In whatever way they exist. Yes, I mean all. Even the ones from 5 (or more) years ago.

Start with the Cs — every computer, camera, & card (memory). Don’t forget the cables & cords for all those. Now we need the Ds — drives (flash/USB/external) & discs (CD/DVD), even those blank ones you’re not sure about. Last but not least, get the Ps — phones, (i)pads, phablets (or tablets, I just had to be phunny). (I realize that some family members may require a bribe or be asleep before giving up their device for a download session so you might have to schedule your workflow accordingly.)

HIDDEN HOARDING
Now you see the task before you. Well, technically you can’t SEE the problem because one of the benefits/challenges of digital hoarding is that it’s hidden! We can’t look at our neighbors and “see” if they have a digital photo-hoarding problem. Although chances are quite good that they most definitely do!

Because it’s essentially invisible, we can hide it from others and we can even hide it from ourselves for the most part. Buying flash drives in bulk and stocking up on external hard drives because ours always get full are the only signs of a possible problem.

GUILT-FEAR-REGRET
Don’t even get me started on the crushing feeling of guilt we have for not doing “something” — anything! — with our zillion JPGs! Or the FEAR we have that “something” BAD is going to happen to them before we ever get around to backing them up the way we know we should but never seem to do anyway.

We live on the edge of regret praying we never have that sad tale to share while playing Russian Roulette with our own children’s precious childhood memories and family heritage, knowing that we’re one accidental click, coffee spill, lightning strike, flood, tornado, fire, theft, or [insert other calamity here] away from vaporizing our valuable memories.

Whew, anyone sweating yet? Heart palpitations? If not, you’re totally UNDER-estimating the seriousness of this situation. I’ve talked to so many mothers who’ve lost their child’s photos and there isn’t anything that can “fix” that. No do overs there. Well, unless you’re these guys but they had the originals for reference.

I-INVENTORY
While you have all this tech hardware handy, take a piece of paper (yes, paper or stone tablet if you want it to last longer) & write down an inventory of these devices just so you know what you have & what you need to check for photos on a consistent basis in the future. (See, I warned you I’d talk about doing this in the future!)

JPGS ON A PC (OR MAC)
On your main computer, locate the PICTURES or MY PICTURES folder. Whether you have a Mac or PC, it’s likely to have one of these already. It’s a good idea to use this default location as it’s a common sense spot, aptly named & well, there isn’t really a good reason NOT to!

DOWNLOAD/DUMP/TRANSFER
Whatever you want to call it, we can’t do much until you get this step done. Plug in the cable or the memory card to let the computer read the device so you can find the photos and copy/transfer them ALL to the main hard drive. Don’t take the time to judge now. Just dump them into that main PICTURES/PHOTOS folder.

Using your Finder (Mac) or Explorer (Windows), if you search/sort by JPG filetype or name, you’ll likely find all you need. Granted you might end up with a few strange extras from software programs too, but at least you’ll get all of yours. If you find various folders of all kinds of names and labels elsewhere on your hard drive, just throw them all into the PICTURES folder too. Make sure EVERYTHING resides in the same main location. We can rename folders later; it might save you some time if they are already sorted and grouped by topic. A girl can dream can’t she?

WHOA WARNING!
DO NOT DUPLICATE the ones already on your hard drive! Just MOVE them into the right spot. You are COPYING the image files from the camera memory cards, phones, flash drives and such onto the main computer hard drive. These will stay on the original device until you choose to delete them. You can do this right afterward if you are confident that your files are already protected in AT LEAST TWO DIFFERENT ways (type/location), which is doubtful unless you’re already a semi-pro at this stuff. Otherwise, you should wait until I advise you to do this later in the series. Once they’ve been sorted and organized, you’ll WANT to delete the other originals as they will only mess you up if you download/transfer them again.

FOLDER FUN
Inside the main PHOTOS folder, create a New Folder named 2015. If you already have any photos taken during January 2015 on your computer, please drag (move) them into here. DO NOT COPY THEM! You don’t want to end up with twice the trouble & half the hard-drive room! Highlight the batch & right-click (or click & drag) to move/send them to this new folder.

Isn’t it convenient that I timed this so that most of your first month’s photos are already shot and ready to be downloaded into the 2015 folder? I’m sneaky smart like that. Now you’ll maybe have just a few more photos from today (30^th) and tomorrow (31^st) to transfer in and you’ll be ready to pull all these into their own January folder inside the 2015 folder.

However, this is all we’re going to attempt for Day 1! Although I assume a few of you might guess tomorrow’s task & try to jump ahead by making a “January” folder. But I’ll bet 95% of you will do it wrong. Trust me. You can wait until I show you the very best way. Relax and know you’ve accomplished enough for your first session & have begun the hardest part of any major task — the first step — starting! You’ve overcome the hugest hurdle of inertia!

In summary, your DAY 1 DUTIES:

1. ROUND-UP ALL PHOTO-TAKING & -HOLDING DEVICES
   TO MAKE A HIGH-TECH HOME BASE FOR YOUR DIGITAL LIFE.
2. LOCATE THE MAIN “PHOTOS” FOLDER
   ON YOUR PRIMARY COMPUTER’S HARD DRIVE.
3. DO A DIGITAL DUMP OF JPGS FROM ALL DEVICES INTO IT
   & MOVE ALL OTHER IMAGES INTO IT AS WELL.
   BONUS: IF YOU STILL HAVE A FEW MINUTES OR ARE FEELING AMBITIOUS,
   MAKE A NEW “2015” FOLDER & MOVE ALL JANUARY PICS INTO IT.

TALKING TIME LIMITS
Obviously, I said you should spend 15 minutes at this task but without knowing how many photos you have — or how many devices, or even how slow your computer might be at transferring them, I’m not 100% sure if this will take a few minutes or a few hours for you. If it’s the latter, let it work and go do other things knowing this is definitely a long overdue task for you.

SAY A PRAYER
No clue if you’re a religious person and this isn’t really meant to be a faith-based point but if you just put ALL your photos on your computer — all your eggs in one basket — it probably goes without saying to be extremely careful and kind to your computer. Don’t do any updates/upgrades to software or systems right now. Don’t decide to take the laptop to the beach or work poolside. Don’t drink coffee (or any liquid) next to it — at all — for any reason! Don’t let the kids download new games or play on it. Take every precaution possible until we’ve organized your photos and then safely archived them using at least two methods besides this hard drive. And let this sentence release me from all legal liability should anything happen to you unlucky folks. Til tomorrow…

© Brenda Kruse and PhotoOrganizingPro.com, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Brenda Kruse and PhotoOrganizingPro.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Happy Birthday and Happy Blog Birthday to me!

That’s right! I’m launching a blog on my birthday today! It’s like giving myself a gift! And with the incredible content on how to organize your digital photos that I plan to give you over the next 15 days, you’re getting an amazing gift too! At the end of these next two weeks together, it’ll be Valentine’s Day (February 14th) so let’s plan to celebrate your sweet success of organized digital photos by eating chocolate cake! Deal?

In the spirit of full honesty, I must confess that I will likely have my cake and eat it today too. After all, it would be sacrilegious not to enjoy a candle-adorned treat on your special day! Personally I’m more of a salty than sweet snack person, and if I go with sweet, it’d be a slightly warm fudgy brownie over a cake with frosting any day of the year. However, I feel obligated for the annual tradition, especially for the sake of my kids who get a kick out of the whole schtick. So just know I’ll be choking down a small chunk of cake sometime today. But in two weeks, I’m leaving all the cake for YOU and I’m sticking to a pan of brownies, k?

Let’s eat cake to celebrate! Especially in 15 days when your digital photos are organized!

In the past, I’ve blogged briefly for other specific situations (like when Oprah called me —no, REALLY, she DID!), but not consistently on a regular basis. (I’m sure every blogger says that but I do mean something slightly different schedule-wise.)

Although this may not end up being my “regular” blog home either, it’s going to serve as my initial kick-off because I have a digital photo organizing mini-series program I’m excited to launch. And I’ve been talking about re-starting my blogging efforts for far too long. So today — my birthday — is the day!

Granted, it’s probably not the wisest idea to attempt learning a new blogging platform like advanced WordPress from scratch at the same time as you set out to release a daily blog for the next two weeks…but I’m just going for it! I’ll learn a lot along the way so bear with me and be forgiving as this part is uncharted territory. And I’m under deadline! Here we go…who’s with me? Let’s jump in…I hear the water’s warm!

 

© Brenda Kruse and PhotoOrganizingPro.com, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Brenda Kruse and PhotoOrganizingPro.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.