7 Tips For Organizing Your Digital Photos

- Jill Duffy

With the holidays just past and the prime vacation months coming up, you’re already deluged with digital photos—and you’re about to get more. Good luck trying to find what you want in all the clutter. We’ve all been there. You search your computer for that lovely shot of the family gathered around the Thanksgiving table from last year to send to your mom. You swipe through pages and pages of images on your phone, looking for that picture of you and your honey to have framed as a gift. You hunt all over Facebook for that amazing picture of your dog in a Santa hat—you’re sure you shared it there at some point. But you can’t find any of them!

Don’t let this happen to you next time. These easy steps will help you organize all the photos you take, and save you the trouble of having to deal with a disorganized mess when you want to locate and share your precious memories.

DELETE THE WORST PHOTOS IMMEDIATELY

The sooner you delete bad photos, the more time you’ll save down the road, and the more efficient your photo organizing will be. Delete photos that are out of focus, badly composed, or just plain ugly while they’re still on your camera or smartphone. Sometimes you want to keep duplicates until you can view them on your computer screen in greater detail, so you’ll know you’re saving only the very best. When you do import your photos, delete any additional images that don’t meet your standards. Don’t keep garbage!

CONSOLIDATE YOUR PHOTOS