Photo Expressions: Very Important Digital Tip in Dealing with your Images

Are you overwhelmed with the volume of digital images you have? Do you find it hard to manage or do anything with them? When was the last time you held a printed image of a photo you recently took, in your hands?

I am going to give you a SUPER BIG hint to deal with this problem. It seems so simple at first, but trust me on this, if you discipline yourself to do this from this day forward, you will have a lot less frustration and guilt surrounding your photos, and will even get to the point where you can enjoy your photos again.

If I can give you ONE hint, to help you, it would be to take a few moments after the event, and DELETE, yes, I said DELETE, some of the photos you took right in your camera. Now before you gasp in shock, read on.

In the film days, you would have taken 6-12 photos or maybe even a roll of 24 photos for something really special. Now with digital, we tend to take 100+ photos of an event. You end up with 3-10+ times the volume of photos that you used to have. This becomes overwhelming to organize, edit, share, or do anything with so if you are like most people, you do nothing.

Do yourself a favour, and go back after the event, and delete ones that aren't great - someone blinked, you cut someone's head off etc. Also delete ones that are super similar- keep the best 1 or 2 of the 10 similar ones you took. Do this right in your camera before you upload to your computer. (If you must upload them all, then make sure to take a few minutes and delete the not so great ones, or similar ones from your hard drive right away.)

Here is a good example of photos my husband or one of my daughters (not sure who) took while we were in Hawaii.

Now while these are cute photos just in the fact that they are of my daughter :), I don't need 5 of them. I wouldn't do a layout with all 5 of these photos, I might include one of them on a layout, or in a photo album about our trip to Hawaii. So, looking at them, I can delete the top left one right off the bat, as I can't see her face or what she is looking at. I can then delete the other top one, because she is making a funny face and the other ones are cuter of her. I can also delete the bottom right one as it is similar to the other two bottom ones, and her face is more in the shadows. So that leaves me with the bottom left and bottom middle photos. I could leave it at this, but if I discipline myself, I would only leave the middle photo as it is very similar to the bottom left photo, but shows more of her, has a better expression, and also shows the waves in the background.

So after this few minute exercise I am left with this photo. Now this is very easy to do something with - whether I want to edit it (it is much less overwhelming to edit one photo than 5!), or upload it and print it for an album or scrapbook page.

Really stop and take a moment to think about this...what if you had 1/5th of the volume of digital images to do something with?! How would that feel?! I bet you could get something done with them! Even if you only had 1/2 of the photos to deal with, you would probably feel a lot better!

Doing this on a regular basis from today forward, will make the volume of digital photos that you have to deal with way more manageable and doable. Instead of having 10 photos of one "image" that you have to edit or share or print, you will have one or two to deal with of an image. This is way more manageable and doable. But you MUST DISCIPLINE YOURSELF TO DO IT RIGHT AWAY. (or at the very least asap before uploading to your computer.) I give you PERMISSION to delete photos. It is okay and will allow you to treasure and love the ones you have in a proper manner!

I have gotten pretty good at deleting photos in my camera, but I know I have to get more ruthless with this. I have been working my way backwards in my images on my hard drive, and deleting ones that are not great or very similar. This is so liberating once you take this step, as the volume of photos to print and put into a photo album or scrapbook so people can enjoy them, is waaaaaaay less overwhelming. The first few sessions of doing this were stressful, but now I feel the guilt lifting off my shoulders and I know that I can scrapbook my favourite images, and place the rest in a regular photo album to be enjoyed. (I use the pages that are 12x12 and 4x6 that fit in my 12x12 album, this way I have ONE layout that tells the story, and the rest of the images related to that story are in pockets right behind.)

Keep watching for more simple tips to help you in your photo life.