HOW TO MANAGE YOUR TRAVEL PHOTOS AND VIDEOS?

 

Memories aren’t perfect, and there’s no better way to capture a Parisian sunset, that breathtaking view of the pyramids, the magic of Aurelia Borealis, or your vacation in New Zealand and Australia than with a trusted camera. In this way, the things that you see and do can live forever. The problem is, as your digital photos and travel videos add up, and sooner or later you are going to run into an organization problem, if you have not done so already. A lack of space on your storage drives or storage in too many locations will make matters worse. Now add to this your printed photographs and your camcorder videos and you have a complete chaos in your hand!

 

You may be an MBA from the best management school in the world, or the most organized homemaker but when it comes to organizing your travel photographs ask yourself honestly, how well organized are you? I have been a traveler for more than 5 decades now and I have black & white printed photographs, coloured printed photographs, coloured slides, videos in tapes of all sizes, in compact disks, and digital images and videos all scattered in one camcorder, 3 digital cameras, 3 desktop computers, 8 pen drives, 4 phones and 4 laptops! Does that make me ‘disorganized’? It surely does, but like all the other desirable but uninteresting things in life, which I have shelved for another day, this is a job I have to do. So, where do we start from?

 

I have one advantage, I am a Plastic Surgeon and ‘planning’ is my middle name. All plastic surgeons always carry a camera to capture before and after surgery photographs and videos for future referencing. Right from day one I have stored all my patient related photographs and videos in a password protected folder called CLINICAL. I have organized them disease wise, procedure wise and patient wise for the last 37 years and this system helps me to recall any set of photographs by just a few clicks on my computer keypad. Armed with this experience I am embarking upon the strenuous task or organizing my travel photographs. Incidentally, storing clinical photographs and videos is a very serious business and an extremely responsible task for the sake of patient's privacy. if you want to know more about it please click: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4292101/

 

So, this is how we plan to go about organizing our travel photographs and videos:

 

Digitize all prints and videos

This is important for preservation and restoration of quality, ease of duplication, instant cataloging and social media sharing. The print photographs can be digitized by a scanner, a digital camera, an app to digitize print photographs and even a professional photo digitization service. PhotoScan is an app from Google Photos that lets you scan printed photographs and save them.

For digitizing videos you can connect your camcorder to your computer using a ‘middleman gadget’ – video capture card, RCA cable or HDMI cable. You can also record directly onto a flash storage device, such as an SD memory card or a USB stick. You can also use a DVD recorder or, as a last resort, record on a digital camera from a screen. Needless to say, you can always hire a professional service to do this for you.

 

Back up the chaos

Before tinkering with files on a computer, save everything to an external hard drive in case anything gets deleted by accident. What size hard drive you need depends on how much data you need to back up. Consider the amount of data already on your computer's internal drive, as well as any data backed up to the cloud. If you have photos on your smartphone worth backing up, add that data to your calculations as well.

 

Collect all in a silo (holding tank)

With everything backed up, you can start collecting images from the smartphone and online locations and place them in a silo. As you bring each set of digital images into this folder, try to keep events or months together instead of dumping a gazillion images from your camera roll. Use your smartphone’s built-in app to identify groupings like months, events or collections. This is also the time to review the images quickly and get rid of anything that isn’t a keeper. Once you have a group of photos in the folder, Next, create or rename a folder and give it a name that represents the group of photos that will go into it.

 

Sort and Discard

Then go through your travel photos and videos and delete all the ones that are dark and blurry (as well as the ones where your thumb is covering the frame!). This step is hugely important as it will keep your collection down to a manageable size.

This is not the time to edit your photos! That step can add days or even weeks and months to your organization process, so for now you just want to get your travel photos into a more manageable state by streamlining the collection into those that are even viable as good memories.

 

Rename and add context

Just as you organize everything into folders; it’s important to add detailed information about the individual photos in the actual file names. After all, the story behind the image is just as important as the picture itself. You’ll want to include who, what and where.

Renaming your images from your camera’s default setting to a consistent system such as trip_month_day_year.jpg, for example, will allow you to search by all four of those labels. Some applications offer batch renaming, which makes the process exponentially faster. If it seems daunting to rename all of your files one by one, then download Adobe Bridge, a free media management program that helps manage and organize images and other files. The batch rename features allows you to quickly rename multiple files in one fell swoop.

 

Arrange in a logical pattern

I have done it country wise and the folders get arranged alphabetically. Inside each country folder you can have State/City folders, Tourist highlights, Festivals etc. Thus in my Australia folder there is Victoria – Melbourne, M.C.G, Cricket, A.F.L, Ballarat, Wilson’s Promontory, Geelong, Great Ocean Road, Dandenong, Puffing Billy, Phillip Island, Penguin parade etc. Similarly my travel photos inside of a Thailand folder has subfolders such as: Bangkok, Koh Samui, Chiang Mai, Hua Hin, Pattaya, Elephant Nature Park, Ayutthaya Day Trip, Thai Food. If you’ve been a couple of times, then it’s time to organize by year within the respective folder.

 

Back up

Plan a 3-2-1 backup strategy The “3” stands for three copies of your files saved in three distinct places. The “2” means that two copies of your data should be in two separate places, such as your computer and a hard drive, or on two hard drives if your archive is too large to fit on your computer. The “1” indicates one set of data should exist at a separate location in case of some unforeseen natural disaster, fire, flood or theft.

You’re already storing your photos on a hard drive of some sort, so now you need a duplication of that drive. Your best solution is likely a low-cost paid subscription to an online storage platform, like Dropbox, Google Drive, or iCloud. Pick a name you know to ensure that your pictures stay backed up for years to come—even if your hard drive or phone fails. If you’re serious about saving and even sharing your travel photos, you can use a service like SmugMug, which allows you to organize your travel photos into beautiful galleries.

Evaluate whether the service compresses your images and what kind of files it accepts. Read the security and privacy fine print — what safeguards will you have, and will you hand over any rights? And consider the company’s reputation and longevity. Many of the services allow you to search using face recognition, location and more, file labeling is also valuable for actually finding what you’re looking for. So choose one or two back-ups carefully.

Now, keep at it, don’t fall back into the old mess

Going forward, make things easier on yourself by organizing your travel photos as you take them, or soon after your trip. Keep only the “keepers," delete the rest, and back up your devices regularly. By following these simple tips, you'll have easy access to your photo bank and peace of mind. And before you grab backpack and head out on your next adventure, you’ll know that you have a plan for keeping all your future memories safe and sound.

 

Don’t just store, use them and enjoy them

Fortunately, there are some great ideas out there for making use of your travel photos in ways that are more effective and enjoyable than simply printing out a few highlights and placing them in an album, the way it always used to be done. In the digital age today if you have a modern television, then you already have the perfect photo frame – load your best shots onto a USB stick, plug it into your TV, and then follow the instructions to set your photos on a loop on-screen. If you would prefer not to use your TV, there are also many digital frames – that are small, framed screens that plug into the wall.

You can also create a book with your photos. It’s surprisingly easy and affordable to create something of high quality using brands and products such as Shutterfly, Snapfish, Mixbook and more. These websites all have simple-to-use software that will allow you to upload and arrange your photos on the pages, design the cover, and then send it off to the printers, with either a hardback or soft binding.

You can also turn your photos into fridge magnets. Companies such as Vistaprint can take your uploaded photos and post them back to you as fridge magnets in a variety of sizes, with or without borders!

You can also put your travel snaps on T-shirts, print them on arty canvas, turn them into posters or postcards, scan them onto sheet metal, make them into drinks coasters, or turn them into personalized passport holders, luggage tags, or even printed over your entire suitcase!