Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Works for Me Wednesday

I actually have another SOS.

I have thousands, upon thousands, of pictures on my computer. None of them backed up. GASP! I know! I know! I know! I mean it, I really know. Not just in the hypothetical either. I really know. How? I've lost pictures before. I KNOW! See? I really do know. And you would think someone as smart (hmmm!) as me, would learn from that fatal mistake. But nope. I haven't.

It's just too much. It's just too time consuming. It's just too hard.

But that's not even my plea for help. Nope. It should be. Please come over and back up all my 10,000 (oh yea, I have at least that many) pictures from this year. But nope, that's not my plea.

I need a way to organize them. THEN I'll back them up. Organize first, back up second. Then they'll be organized on the disk. (Not being organized causes me to stand still, in confusion and chaos. OOPS.)

So here is where you come in. PLEASE, I beg you, please help me figure out how to organize my photos. Something free. Any kind of program, but free is for me.

10 comments:

Yara said...

photobucket
you can keep pix private, I'm pretty sure
you can sort into different albums
its easy

Andrea Hamilton said...

I would go to www.creativememories.com and find a consultant in your area. CM used to be just traditional scrapbooks, and they can be pricey, but they also do digital and custom framing now. They have a computer program called Memory Manager 2. I am a huge fan of this program. It has several forms of backup, so your pictures ae always safe. Exporting and printing is easy. Organization is fatastic and easy. The consultant should be able to give you a quik demo - but it has built in demos also. Try it - it is worth the money. And Creative Memories was started to preserve your memories - they know what they are doing. Email me at benandrea102607@gmail.com if you have more questions

Rachel@just another day in paradise said...

I've used photobucket, snapfish, shutterfly. . .I'm really good at taking pics, but. . .I prefer shutterfly but I have issues with it. Let me know if you stumble on the perfect solution!

Yvonne said...

Wow! I'm in the same boat, but I have most of my photos on Flickr and pay $25 a year for a pro account. I love it! The community, feedback, ease of uploading, and archiving make it so worth it.

I actually have an external hard drive that is still in the package. Maybe it's time I break that out and actually start using it. ;) ::sigh:: If only there weren't better things to do right now.

Anonymous said...

I like to organize by date.
my folder structure is like this:

MyPictures
2008
012008Jan08
022008Feb08
Feb08AdamsBday
Feb08Zoo
032008Mar08
042008April08
April08Easter
...

I list the date numeric first so it will be sorted correctly and then add the alpha Month so I don't have to the math "07=July". This has worked well for me. I can usually remember the Month something happened or come close. Then if something interesting happens in the month make a separate sub-folder…birthday’s, holidays, trips…

~Heather

Anonymous said...

...blogger didn't like my formatting...

MyPictures
   2008
     012008Jan08
     022008Feb08
       Feb08AdamsBday
       Feb08Zoo
     032008Mar08
     042008April08
       April08Easter

Amy said...

My system is similar to Heather's (or, ya know, would be, if I actually used it). I've also found that the picture software that came with my camera actually recognizes the date the photos were taken, rather then just the date they were uploaded. I think it's comes up under "properties." That might help if you can't remember when a particular photo is from.

Lana said...

Have you tried Picasa? It locates all your pictures on your computer and sorts them for you. You can create private albums online for just your family or friends to see.

Plus, it is FREE!

It has been awesome for this mom!

Michelle said...

Thank you all so much for all the ideas.

I'm trying Picasso right now but it doesnt put my pictures in the right year. It's weird.

I need to check out Creative Memories. That sounds like exactly what I want.

Photobucket, etc take to long to upload them. I'm talking thousands.

I do like how Heather and Amy organize theirs and may try that too. I could at least get them saved.

Anyway, thanks everyone. You were very helpful.

Tiffers said...

I use Wal-Mart, they don't charge and I organize by year and month. I actually wrote a whole post about this for Works for Me Wednesday @ http://tiffany-becauseimthemommy.blogspot.com/2008/09/works-for-me-wednesday.html