Plan Before You Scan
Plan Before You Scan: Organize Your Photos, THEN Digitize
Who doesn't love capturing memories through photos?
Who doesn't love capturing memories through photos? They serve as vivid reminders of where we’ve been, the experiences we've shared, and moments long past. However, having countless boxes, bags, and albums filled with print photos can quickly become overwhelming, especially if they’re not well-organized. Whether you’re planning a move or have inherited a collection of photos and media you haven’t even sorted through, it can feel like a heavy burden.
I get it—sending everything off to a big scanning company might seem like the easiest solution. But trust me, that's not the right move! Without organizing your photos first, you’re doubling the chaos, wasting both time and money, and creating a digital mess. While no one wants to inherit a jumbled mess of printed photos, they certainly don’t want to inherit digital disarray either. Future generations will value a well-organized, cohesive story—not a chaotic collection.
Scanning is the act of turning a photo or slide or negative into a digital image.
There are various ways to do this and there are so many scanning choices: scan the photos yourself, find a photo manager to scan for you or send away to one of the larger scanning companies. The problem of throwing your disorganized photos in a box to be scanned is multi-faceted. You will be wasting your money because you will have photos in the box that do not need to be scanned, such as duplicates, blurry and scenery snaps. You also will be getting back a digital folder with unintelligibly named files, such as img_0079.jpg. You will not be able to tell what is in the file without opening it up. Imagine having hundreds of files like that. How frustrating to have to weed through all of those files to find the photo you are searching for? Can you see how important it is to organize your photos first? Organizing your photos first will allow you to pare down your collection, organize it by category or date and then find a scanning resource that will preserve your organization and name the folders and files as you wish.
Prepare Your Photos For Scanning
To prepare your photos for scanning, get rid of unnecessary photos as mentioned above, as well as many of the photos without people in them, like the time you took pictures of all the animals in the zoo! Then sort your photos into categories or themes, such as family events, vacations, or special occasions. You can also organize them chronologically or by the people featured in the photos. Having a clear organizational system will make it easier to manage and locate specific photos once they're digitized.
Lastly, make sure the photos are cleaned and not full of dust or debris. You can use cotton gloves or a soft cloth to brush the dust off both the front and back of the photos. If you would like a solution that will easily lead you through the print photo organization process, check out digyourphotos.com.
There are so many reasons to have your print photos digitized!
The top three reasons are to create a backup, to be able to share the photos easily and for restoration purposes.
Create a Backup: If you are like most people, your print photos are stored in boxes, bags and albums in various places around the house and in the garage. Every passing day, your print photos are deteriorating, fading and collecting dust and even worse, subject to water, fire or other natural disasters. Just this month, many houses in our area were flooded due the massive rain. Scanning the print photos creates a digital backup so that you can preserve the photos for generations to come. When you only have one copy of your collection, it is at risk to perish forever.
Share Your Photos: When your photos are digitized, there are so many options to share them and not just by text or email. A quick and easy way to share your photos is with a digital frame. You can continually add to your home’s digital frame photo collection or you can set up a digital frame for a loved one, such as a parent or child. You can seamlessly add photos to their frame and surprise them with amazing moments! Another great way to share photos, especially of an event or special trip is with a photo book. There are many companies out there that make the creation of the book fast and easy with templates and guides. Who wouldn’t want to celebrate and share their amazing story and legacy with a project?
3. Restore Your Photos
At the very least, when you look to a scanning company to digitize your collection you should be asking a few very important questions on how they will handle your media. At a minimum, light color correction should be done on the digitized photos. Let’s face it, these print photos are anywhere from 20 years old at a minimum to possible a 100 or more, and photos fade with time. Even if you stored those photos correct environment, they would lose vibrancy and possibly oxidize, turning reddish or greenish for color snaps, or yellowish or silver on black and white photos. Most certified photo managers will perform basic color correction on your scanned photos, either when the photos are digitized or after as an enhancement. This can make all the difference when viewing the photo or reprinting.
Digitizing your photo collection not only protects it from physical degradation but also ensures that these cherished memories can be easily shared and enjoyed for years to come. Remember, a little planning up front, organizing and paring down your collection, will save you time and money in the long run and leave a wonderful legacy for generations to come.
Rhoda Gordon is a
certified photo manager, owner of Sunflower Photo Solutions and creator of DIG YOUR PHOTOS!, the only complete photo organizing kit on the market. Rhoda has been helping families and businesses organize and back up their print and digital collection for almost a decade. See more tips, tricks and how-tos on her Youtube channel: youtube.com/@digyourphotos and check out sunflowerphotosolutions.com and digyourphotos.com for guidance and support with you media collection.
