Physical Photo Organizing
Many people have collections of physical photos stored away in their homes. These photos may be in boxes or drawers, in envelopes or loose, in albums that range from archival quality to the old sticky-paged albums (known as "magnetic albums"). They may be printed out or just in negative form, the print given away long ago. And don't forget the slides!
It can be difficult to decide where to start when thinking about organizing a collection of photos. I have a tried-and-true method to turn even the largest, most chaotic mess into a chronologically curated, well-organized collection.
The Path to Physical Photo Organization
GATHER AND ORGANIZE
Just like with Digital Collections, organization begins with locating as much as you'd like to have digitized for preservation and enjoyment. Whether it's all the physical media you have access to or just a portion of your collection, it's most cost-effective to do as much organizing in one large batch.
DEDUPLICATING
While organizing, I'll often find double or even triple prints in a collection. These are removed to the side as "duplicates" for you to decide how you'd like to handle them (projects, other family members, discard, etc.)
CHRONOLOGICAL ORGANIZATION
Depending on the plan discussed, the collection is organized into chronological order and either stored into an archival storage system and/or scanned and digitized and added to an organized digital library.
OPTIONAL SERVICES
All this physical media is aging and deteriorating over time, so I recommend getting these images digitized. We are happy to offer scanning services to digitize any of these physical media.