Too many photos?

[123SA]

Last night, I tackled the dreaded task of organizing the 2000+ photos I have from our last trip. It took all night to just place them in files by park. I still have to add in my photopass photos, go through them to delete bad or duplicate photos and organize each park within its file. All of this so I can decide what photos to print and pages to make. I can't print them all. I can't justify the cost. I am a long way from page making.

For the past 6 months I have been mostly swapping with very few pages actually completed. I think I know the real reason. I don't feel like going through my tons of photos, deciding what to print, cropping, and printing them --it is not fun. I have realised recently that sometimes I don't take my camera with me because I can't deal with any more photos to organize and the guilt I feel because I don't make the time to print them, email them, or make pages. And right now, I am avoiding the task by writing this!

I think I may miss my film camera -- it kept the number of photos manageable.

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

I hear ya!!! 5000+ pics from WDW xmas alone. I dread going through them but I'm ready to scrap another Disney trip.

I miss film too because I have the pics. If they are on the computer they just sit here and multiply. Plus the digital ones are so much better looking that I can't just toss the unusable pics either. I feel the need to scrap them all so I can't really help you there.

 

[New England Eeyore]

I totally hear you. I said the same exact thing after I returned from my first digital-Disney trip - "I miss film!"

Here's what I did to make the 2000 or so photos from my April trip manageable. My computer automatically organized the photos by day of trip. I sat at my computer with a notebook and just made notes for each day of the trip of how the pictures would fit onto logical scrapbook pages (ie "Tree of Life - 1 page layout - 3 photos - images 1234, 5678, and 91011"). Start with an easy day and you'll begin to get a rhythm of how many photos you'll use on a layout and what type of pictures you'd like to use. It was a bit time-consuming, so I probably only worked on 1-2 trip days at a time, but within a couple weeks I had all my notes done. I put that time in at the beginning and the payoff was worth it. Those notes then were the springboard for me to do all my journalling ahead of time, which pictures to order, and the master list of pages to complete. People who have been to crops with me have probably wondered about my crazy-looking notebook full of seeming nonsense, but it was my bible! I still have it because I have about a dozen pages left to do. This plan served me well, and I will definitely use it again.

 

[LindaBabe]

I find that writing the trip report first helps me decide what pages to make which narrows down the photos needed to tell the story.

The trip report goes in a page protector in the book, the pages only need titles and captions for the photos, no extensive journaling. Then, a cd of all the photos lives in the front of the scrapbook in a pocket.

 

[123SA]

Ladies -- thanks for the encouragement and suggestions. I have never done a trip report before, but I do like the idea! I am not fond of journaling on each page, the report seems faster and more room for photos! I'll have to go check out some reports for inspiration.

NEE -- I am a notebook kind of girl too! For the last trip I scrapped, I had a notebook which included sketches for everypage (2 albums full). I did this ahead time -- actually I think I did pretty much what you suggested, except I got most of it finished over 2 kid free days while waiting for my sister to deliver her first child. It did work well. I just didn't have as many photos to deal with up front. I printed them all and went through the actual photos at the hospital -- maybe 600 or so. This past trip we went to parks on multiple days so the photos are jumbled and 2000 is just too many to print.

I did more sorting last and I am determined to to stick with it. That is part of the reason why I am not your swap -- between 100 Christmas cards, cfaft gifts and this project, I am swamped.

 

[New England Eeyore]

I did more sorting last and I am determined to to stick with it. That is part of the reason why I am not your swap -- between 100 Christmas cards, cfaft gifts and this project, I am swamped.

Well here's some encouragement to get it all done. You'll get there eventually!

 

[KerTggr]

Not sure if you already tried this, but may help in your orgnization of your pictures (as long as you have the date/time set on your digital camera and are on a PC):

While in the folder where your pictures are stored, go to View>Details. This will give you a modified date/time as well as a Date Picture Taken column.​

NEE -- I am a notebook kind of girl too! For the last trip I scrapped, I had a notebook which included sketches for everypage (2 albums full). I did this ahead time -- actually I think I did pretty much what you suggested, except I got most of it finished over 2 kid free days while waiting for my sister to deliver her first child. It did work well. I just didn't have as many photos to deal with up front. I printed them all and went through the actual photos at the hospital -- maybe 600 or so. This past trip we went to parks on multiple days so the photos are jumbled and 2000 is just too many to print.

I too am a notebook girl. I have a 3" binder where I keep the pages I've torn out of magazines. They are sorted by 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5< picture layouts. The other notebook I use is a contact sheet I print at lower quality. I use these to sketch layouts while watching TV. I pick the pictures I am going to scrap by putting sticky's over the ones I am not going to scrap (that way I only see the ones I am interested in). When I sketch the layout, I just put the title of the pic in the square for the pic. When I have a few sketched, I upload to a site, resize & print. If there are multiple that I can't tell the best, I just mark the square with all possible and pick when I go to upload.

(To print a contact sheet (if in XP): While in the folder where you want to print a contact sheet of, Click on 1 picture to highlight. Click on "Print this Picture" on the left. Click Next. When given the option, choose select all. Click Next. Click on printing preferences and choose a lower quality or B&W option. Click Next. Click Contact Sheet Print. Click Next. Printing will begin. This will give you 35 prints per page. You can use the backside of the paper, but depending on the quality it may make seeing the details of pictures harder.)

 

[missesdisney]

I am a computer girl myself but I also take an insane amount of pictures. I keep it from getting unmanageable on the computer by ordering the prints right away (I use shutterfly myself). I just don't have time or patience to print them at home and all totaled I think the cost is marginal to order instead.

For my Disney trips, I sort the pictures into parks and then in the past I have cropped all of them first - I find that easier and more mindless. Then when I sit to scrap I just lay out a park and resort by days or similar activities and go for it. Now since I've been swapping for 6 months I haven't cropped or scrapped my last trip, but when the AK swap came back I had a revelation! I pulled my AK pics and after laying out all the swap items, I put the pics into the baggies with those items! Viola - ready to scrap pages. Ok this was a while ago and there are no pages yet, but it's ready

I am leaving in 11 days and did not scrap my short trip from April yet which is bugging me. I may work on some this weekend and next before I go if time allows - darn football tournament is getting in the way!

For other things with pictures, I also order pretty quickly so that it doesn't get out of control online - now that means lots of shutterfly envelopes full of printed pics staring at me instead!

 

[BigGreen73]

I never knew that there was such a thing as too many pictures. I love taking pictures and love digital. You can take as many as you want without running out of film and if something comes out bad you don't have to wait until it's developed to see it.

You guys have me beat though. My DW and I took about 750-800 this past May, and are looking to break the 1000 mark this coming Dec.

Organizing and taking care of your pics can be quite the task, but I find it rewarding and keeps those magical memories fresh in my mind just that much longer.