Is Organization Preventing You From Starting to Scan Your Photo Collection?

Are you someone who is just itching to have your entire photo collection converted to digital images on your computer? I mean, you know you want to do it – badly. You know you should be doing it – you can see all of your aging photos over there in a few boxes in the hall closet. But there's just something holding you back.

I wanna take a guess and say if it's not a lack of enthusiasm, what you could be experiencing is frustration trying to imagine how you could ever get all of your original prints and negatives chronologically organized and in one place at the same time.

It's sort of like cooking. For those who still practice the seemingly lost art – how often do you start cooking without already having all of the ingredients? Very seldom I imagine.

We are creatures who like to complete all of one step before moving on to the next. For example we mow all of our front yard before starting on the back and we put on both socks before putting on a shoe.

So it makes sense that for many of us, the thought of not gathering up every single last one of our photographs first (from every closet and every relative), then organizing them (e.g. sorting by date or events), followed lastly by the process of scanning, seems illogical, inefficient or maybe even flat out impossible.

Just Start Scanning

But what's great about digitizing your photo collection is that you don't have to be so structured. Make it fun. Like digital video recorders allow you to watch television on your own schedule, image managers of today (like Picasa and iPhoto) allow you to work through your collection at your own pace and in your own way.

Whether you know it or not, you actually have three choices – not just one. You can:

Any of these methods will work. But just know that trying to do all of the sorting in the beginning puts a tremendous amount of work – not to mention pressure – for you upfront before you even scan your first picture. It could easily paralyze even the most passionate person from getting started digitizing their collection.

That would be such a shame if you had a feeling of defeat before you really even got started. But you know, once you get into it, moving pictures around in your image manager is not only really easy, but it's also very freeing. It gives you the ability to leverage time by getting the scanning process done quicker.

I say… just get them in your computer, broadly sorting as you go, and finely sorting them later when it's convenient and fun for you.

My Own Experience

I personally have been scanning completely out of any kind of rational order. This is not only by choice, but also out of necessity.

My parents live in Kentucky and I am way out here in sunny California. My parents have most of the family collection safe with them. I describe it as “comfortingly inconvenient” for the purposes of my workflow.

When I visit them, I return west with shipping envelopes or nice sturdy shopping mall bags full of pictures. I am still just not comfortable shipping any of our photos through the mail. I know, I know – but insurance won't replace the irreplaceable. And to take it a step further, I don't even let the airlines check them in with my bags. To date I have only brought home with me what would fit in carry-on bags.

So I am without any sort of a complete collection. When I feel like a scanning session, I grab an album full of prints I brought home or an envelope stuffed with loose photos and start scanning.

What's cool is once I type in the date the photo was taken using my 3-part filenaming formula, all of these newly scanned photos in my favorite image manager “Aperture” (“Lightroom” if I were using Windows) suddenly line up chronologically and by event.

For me, this method is so much easier than the time and madness required to have my entire collection physically in one place and in chronological order before scanning. Of course, I still want to organize my original prints and negatives. But by doing it this way, I am free to do it at a slower pace knowing that all of them are safely digitized and backed up for the future.