Downsizing to Digital

When we were in the process of downsizing last fall I was amazed at how much space our photo albums and loose photos took up. We had stashed photo albums all over the house in closets and on bookcases. I had a drawer full of loose photos that had been waiting for years to be filed. When I finally compiled the albums and loose photos I filled four and a half boxes! Since we were moving from a house with 10 closets, a full attic, full basement and garage to a condo I knew storage space would be at a premium. I SO did not want to depend on keeping some of our belongings in a storage unit so I worked really hard to make sure everything we moved could fit into our new condo.

I was not a fan of digital cameras and photos when they first became popular. It seemed that the photos became "lost" if they weren't on paper. Several years later I much prefer digital photos to paper ones. They are easy to find (generally), share with others and view on a digital picture frame.

So, I developed a plan to convert all of those 4 1/2 boxes of photos to digital. It is a HUGE project and will probably take me years to complete.

First, my husband and I removed the photos from the photo albums.

 

Next we organized them into boxes labeled by decade.

Photos after they were removed and organized by decade. They take up much less space than before

 

Then, I took each decade and organized the photos by the year, and then by the date.

Organized by year

Photos from the 90's after they are organized

 

Some photos are not labeled and I just guess what year/month they were taken.

Once they are all organized the scanning, uploading and labeling will begin.

I am not entirely sure that the organizing was necessary but I think it will be easier to put them in albums by the year now that I have organized them. I am learning about digital photos, labeling, tagging, etc. as I go.

 

 

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