Nixplay has partnered with the Association of Personal Photo Organizers (APPO) for the Save Your Photos initiative, a public service outreach campaign that teaches individuals how they can preserve life’s irreplaceable photos, videos, and documents in case of an unforeseen accident or disaster. Visit the Save Your Photos website for more information.
In this day and age, there’s simply no more reason to lose your old photos. With new technology debuting on a daily basis, future-proofing your photos has never been easier. You can also display all your images on a Nixplay Frame so you’ll always have your memories at your fingertips.
However, many people put off organizing their photos because, in the grand scheme of things, a messy photo collection seems like a trivial problem. That is, until *knock on wood* you become affected by an unforeseen disaster or accident that renders all your irreplaceable images unusable. Only then will you regret not creating backups of your photo collection sooner.
To help you start making sense of your photos, here are four things you can do to make the task easier.
1. Only keep what truly matters.
Be intentional about the images you want to store for keeps. These photos need not always mark important milestones–even images that capture everyday life can be kept, as long as they elicit certain memories or tug at your heartstrings. Screenshots, duplicate shots, photos of receipts or documents, silly selfies–you don’t have to archive these.
2. Scan old photos in batches.
A lot of families have at least a dozen albums of printed photos, most likely with no digital backup, gathering dust in a corner of their homes. Just looking at those albums and imagining the gargantuan task of scanning the images one by one can make even the most patient of people sigh in despair. Make it less of a chore by doing just two or three albums at a time. Better yet, divide the albums between the different members of your family so you can accomplish the task faster.
3. Arrange them by date.
Don’t just dump your images in one folder. Sure, it’s easy, but this makes it difficult should you need to dig up a specific photo. After scanning or uploading your photos, make it a point to immediately sort them according to the event or time period during which they were taken.
4. Get in touch with a Photo Organizer.
Photo Organizers help people curate and safeguard their photo collections so future generations can access, share, and enjoy them. Get in touch with the Association of Personal Photo Organizers (APPO), whose members can, in addition to helping you organize and digitize your photos and videos, also help you create photo albums, restore old images, and do research about your family history, among other invaluable services.
Join Nixplay and APPO in commemorating Save Your Photos Month! Visit www.saveyourphotos.org for more information.
Marianne is Nixplay’s Web Content Editor. Her hobbies include exploring new places, playing table tennis, and cuddling puppies. Send her a message at marianne.salazar@nixplay.com.