Wednesday, January 18, 2012

21COFH - Processing Photos & Files

Reading 'Twas the Night Before Christmas
This week's assignment from Michelle Goodrum (Turning of Generations) for the 21st Century Organized Family Historian is Process Photos & Files.  The instructions:

-Transfer the photos to your computer or wherever you store them.
-Use the scheme you decided on from last week.
-Use tags and metadata if doing so.
-Adjust/process photos as needed (and time allows)
-Back up your work!

What a great idea this it is too!  I have tons of photos from the holidays (and Halloween, and the first day of school, and the summer, and....) that need to be transferred over to my computer, but more than that...

I have a system (when I use it, and I really need to get on it), where I get the pictures to my computer, name them, make any adjustments to the photos, delete ones that just don't make the cut, and then I get them off my computer.  That's a habit my husband started me on.  I take so many pictures, I can fill a hard drive in no time!  So I upload the named and corrected pictures to Shutterfly (cloud storage) and then I transfer them to the backup drive in our home.  I'm trying to only keep pictures on my actual laptop that I'm currently using (this does include all genealogy related photos).

I was able to get 3 sets of photos named, tagged, and uploaded...our Cub Scout Pack marching in the Veterans Day Parade, Our Pack's Christmas Caroling and Christmas Eve.  I kept my tags simple.  Just a name of who is in the picture, the date if known, and event.  I have a Mac so I can actually type in a location a tag it on a map (very cool).


Now I just need to keep up with it!

I'm motivated to continue.  Not difficult to do (although it can be time consuming).  Just pop in a movie or listen to music and organize files!  Great idea, Michelle!