Week 862 - Photo Finish - 02-19-2023

Photo Finish

Everyone likes photos and loves to take them. With the advent of cell phones we are all "photographers". With the constant click, click, click, the photos pile up. On your phone and on your camera. Then the phone and camera fill up and we find a way to move them to our computer.

Now you have thousands of photos and want to store them some way that will allow you to find them. Let's explore some of the ways we tried.

Before our first digital camera, we snapped the pictures, had them developed and put them into albums. The albums were chronological and finding them was pretty easy. We could guess about when the photos were taken, grab that album and look. If that album seemed to be after the photo we want, we checked the previous album and vice versa. But that was when we had hundreds of photos. Today, we have over 100,000!

Photo from Google Images

We bought our first digital camera in 2000. Its storage was only big enough for a few dozen photos. The camera came with Photo Album Software. The software would have you put the photos into categories. Such as: Christmas, Open House, Emily's Birthday, Pool Party, etc.

Photo from Google Images

Digital cameras quickly advanced and our next one could store hundreds of photos. It came with different Photo Album Software, more complicated with more features. Some new categories were: Nick's Basketball Games, Melissa's Gymnastics, Trip to Maui, Tree House, etc. Now we have more categories not compatible with the first camera's software.

Then came the cell phones, two of them. Photos were stored on the phones. Great! Carry the phones all the time, take lots of pictures and they are right on the phone. Until the phone fills up or you get new phones!

Photo from Google Images

Now it is 10 years later and you want to find a photo. Where is it? Check the physical photo albums, the first camera album, the second camera album and check each phone. Didn't find it? Start over and over until you find it or just don't care and give up.

There are several problems with storing photos as outlined above.

1. You have lots of places to look.
2. You must take the time to move photos into categories.
3. The software you used in 2000 may not be compatible with your new computer.
    This happens quite often, as companies frequently do not update software for new computers.
4. Storing by category is problematic.
  a) Many people are not good at naming categories and never pick the correct category.
  b) When a photo should be in two categories which do you pick?
  c) When you have a single photo, do you give it a new category?
      Or put it into Misc? One way you end up with hundreds of categories with one or two photos.
     The other way you end up with a Misc category with hundreds of unrelated pictures.
  d) If the photo you want to find is not in a well-defined category, you might never find it.

A Solution

We have used this technique for over 17 years. It is simple, takes only seconds per day, works for all models of cameras/phones and works on all computers. First, we don't use the software that comes with our camera. Second, we learn the easy way to download our photos from our camera or phones. Third, we back up our computer data, either on a local external drive or a "Cloud". If you don't back up, eventually you WILL lose all your photos, period.

Here is what we do. Weekly, we download all our photos into a computer folder labeled for the week. That's it! No creating categories, just drop all photos from all devices into the weekly folder.

Here is a sample of folders. On our computer, you will see a folder list but not the photos, such as:

Week 823 - 05-22-22
Week 822 - 05-15-22
Week 821 - 05-08-22

We add the week ending date to the folder name to quickly find the right folder.

When you click on a folder, you will see the photos. We expanded all three weekly folders here to make our lesson easier to comprehend. While we have hundreds of photos per week, we are showing just a brief sample.

So, okay, it was very quick to load all the photos for the week into a folder. Now, how do we find a photo we want. We just access the Diary that we learned about last week. Here is a three week sample.

Week 823 
    22-05-22 140479 North Park Inn & Suites, Walden CO Dry (3) $5, host:Alisa, snow
    22-05-21 140366 Fort Collins CO Elks, Jim/LaRae, Dave/Linda, HDay Jim 62
    22-05-20 140366 Fort Collins CO Elks E (2.5) $25
    22-05-19 140354 Horsetooth Reservoir, PB
    22-05-18 140354 Horsetooth Reservoir
    22-05-17 140354 Horsetooth Reservoir, PB, Dave/Linda (Far Horizons)
    22-05-16 140354 Horsetooth Reservoir, Ft. CO 3 (3.5) $40, Host: Jim/LaRae
Week 822 
    22-05-15 140290 Westminster CO Elks, visit Eric
    22-05-14 140290 Westminster CO Elks 3WS (2.5?) $21 Host:Dennis/Sharon, visit Jeff/Linda
    22-05-13 140214 Keith/Lori Col.Springs CO boondock
    22-05-12 140155 Winery of the Holy Cross Abby Dry (3) HH
    22-05-11 139906 Sky Ute Casino Ignacio CO 5WS (4) $28 PA Host: William
    22-05-10 139866 Wines of the San Juan, Blanco NM 5W (3) $HH Owners: David/Marcia
    22-05-09 139720 Gallup NM Elks
Week 821 
    22-05-08 139720 White Mountain Bible Church, Gallup NM Elks Dry (3) $10
    22-05-07 139572 Show Low Elks AZ 5WS (3.5) $20, Rob host, Phil/Ruby (Far Horizons)
    22-05-06 139569 Bison Golf Club Dry (4) HH, Debbie Fink (Buffalo Bills Tavern)
    22-05-05 139395 High Chaparral RV 5WS PA $20, Donnalee, start big adventure
    22-05-04 139381 Palm Creek
    22-05-03 139381 Palm Creek
    22-05-02 139381 Palm Creek

Let's look for some photos.

Where's the photo of Phil and Ruby at the Show Low Elks? We open the Diary file and search for Phil or search for Show Low. We find Week 821 on 5-7-22. We look at all the photos from that date and there's the one we want.

Next we'll look for Nephew Keith. Search for Keith and Lori. We find Week 822 on 5-13-22. We look at all the photos from that date and find photo DSC02246.JPG.

Remember when we got snowed on in Colorado? Search for snow. We find Week 822 on 5-22-22 and there's a half dozen photos to choose from.

[Pete has been in the computer data storage business for 55 years. He looks for methods that are simple, quick and foolproof. We have used this technique for 17 years. It works! If you implement this, you can call for free help with any aspect of it. Try it!]

Class dismissed.

With love, Pete, Ellen and Mandy

"Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you." Philippians 4:9

Photos from our archive