Technology continues to transform the world at a mind-numbing pace. Every year it seems, new technologies emerge that put our traditional ways of doing things to shame. Some of these methods are inherently superior, such as the movement toward digital media. While you might not be able to physically feel it in the palms of your hands, having digital media can ensure that you never lose pictures, photos and other forms of media. Most people have old photos laying around that they’d like to ensure last forever, but they haven’t taken the time to digitize and organize them. We’ll review some tips on how to digitize and organize your old photos so that they stand the test of time.
Procure a Capture Solution
There are a few different ways in which you can begin the process of digitizing your old photos. The first solution is through the use of a standard scanner. Many people already have these and they can be used to capture one or more photos at a time. Another potential solution uses digital document imaging scanners, which are perfect for all types of media and documents, and take up less desk space. Companies like Scantronix can even use this technology for you. Another solution utilizes mobile apps, which can be found on Android and iOS app stores. These can be used to capture the photos with surprisingly good resolution on any mobile device such as a phone or tablet.
Organize Effectively
Once the photos have been scanned or digitized in some fashion, the next step involves organizing your photos in an efficient way. There are many different pieces of software available that can be used with varying degrees of detail. Solutions such as iPhoto, Google Photos and a variety of other software solutions offer many different fields for organizing photos. Not only can you customize names so that photos are easier to find, but these tools will provide you with tags and fields that make it easier to group photos into albums. You can use tags to associate photos from specific events together, as well as other fields such as dates and seasons. Many photo organizing tools even feature elements like facial recognition, which make it easier to group photos together based on who is in them.
Save Your Efforts
One of the biggest reasons why digitizing photos is so appealing is that you will have them forever. If you go through all of the work of saving and organizing these precious memories, then it only makes sense to back them up. There are many different back-up solutions available online, such as Dropbox and Carbonite. In reality, almost any cloud-based storage service will do: not only will this ensure that you have multiple copies, but you’ll also be able to access these photos from anywhere in the world and at any time. Additionally, you may also want to invest in a solid external hard drive for creating an additional back-up of all of your memories.
Whether you are scanning photos into your computer, organizing them in order to make them easy to find, or preserving them so that they will last forever, you will enjoy and appreciate the fact that your memories will now be secure.